Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: "Parental Rights’" Groups and Christian Nationalists Spearheading Book Banning and Attacks on Libraries
September 27, 2022
By Bill Berkowitz
In February, Greg Locke, an anti-vax and pro-Trump pastor, organized and carried out a book burning in Mt. Juliet, TN, a suburb of Nashville. “We gonna get rid of some unholy covenants and alliances and some word curses and some witchcrafts,” he said. “We gonna free some homes and some marriages. Gonna burn some stuff.” Last year, two Spotsylvania County Virginia school board members called for burning books. In 1933, in Germany, Nazis burned thousands of books deemed “un-German,” including the works of Jewish authors like Albert Einstein and those such foreign influences like Ernest Hemingway. Locke’s book burning stunt and the VA school board members’ advocacy of book burning represent the outer edge of a book banning movement that is picking up steam across the country.
As the fortieth anniversary of Banned Book Week came to a close on September 24, book banning will not cease anytime soon. Book banners have added new tactics to their arsenal: Harassing and intimidating librarians, white nationalist groups disrupting children’s reading hours at libraries, attacking book stores, offering book banning legislation in several states, and attacks on libraries by so-called parents rights groups.
According to the American Library Association, Between January 1 and August 31, 2022, there were 681 attempts to ban or restrict library resources, and 1,651 unique titles were targeted compared to 2021, when the ALA reported 729 attempts to censor library resources, targeting 1,597 books. At the time, that represented the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling its lists more than 20 years ago.
“I’ve noticed that current censorship campaigns tend to fall into two camps: attacks on books that deal with LGBTQ themes and efforts to censor history books for dealing forthrightly with America’s troubled racial past,” Rob Boston, Editor of Americans United’s Church & State publication, told me via email. “So-called ‘parental rights’ groups and white Christian nationalists trade in homophobia and seek to whitewash our nation’s history, erasing the existence of entire classes of people and spreading the pernicious ‘Christian nation’ myth. They are to literature and social studies what creationists are to science – a wrecking crew that elevates dogma over facts and labors to turn public schools and libraries into agents of fundamentalist proselytization.”
PEN America recently released a report titled “Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools” (https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/). In what PEN America is calling “the first comprehensive look at bans throughout the 2021–22 school year,” the report found: “More books banned. More districts. More states. More students losing access to literature. More” is the operative word for this report on school book bans.”
The PEN America report “identified at least 50 groups involved in pushing for book bans at the national, state, or local levels. This includes eight groups that have among them at least 300 local or regional chapters. PEN America has identified these chapters based on the national groups’ own listings, by chapter or regional websites, and by their official chapter and regional group pages on Facebook. Insofar as we have been able to establish, there are at least another 38 state, regional, or community groups that do not appear to have formal affiliations with national organizations or with one another.
“These groups share lists of books to challenge, and they employ tactics such as swarming school board meetings, demanding newfangled rating systems for libraries, using inflammatory language about ‘grooming’ and ‘pornography,’ and even filing criminal complaints against school officials, teachers, and librarians. The majority of these groups appear to have formed in 2021, and many of the book bans counted by PEN America can be linked in some way to their activities. Some of the groups espouse Christian nationalist political views, while many have mission statements oriented toward reforming public schools, in some cases to offer more religious education. In at least a few documented cases (for example, in Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania), the individuals lodging complaints about books did not have children attending public schools when at the time they raised objections.”
PEN America’s report found that “at least 40 percent of bans listed in the Index (1,109 bans) are connected to either proposed or enacted legislation, or to political pressure exerted by state officials or elected lawmakers to restrict the teaching or presence of certain books or concepts.”
“The unprecedented number of challenges we’re seeing already this year reflects coordinated, national efforts to silence marginalized or historically underrepresented voices and deprive all of us – young people, in particular – of the chance to explore a world beyond the confines of personal experience,” said ALA President Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada.
“Librarians develop collections and resources that make knowledge and ideas widely available, so people and families are free to choose what to read,” Pelago-Lozada said. “Though it’s natural that we want to protect young people from some of life’s more difficult realities, the truth is that banning books does nothing to protect them from dealing with tough issues. Instead, it denies young people resources that can help them deal with the challenges that confront them.”
AU’s Rob Boston noted that “There is nothing new here. It's the same old effort by religious extremists and their political allies to force everyone to live by their narrow beliefs. They want to control what others can see, learn, feel and experience because they know the potential of books to change lives -- and that is precisely why they fear them. They may be feeling emboldened right now, but they won’t get away with it if enough Americans understand what is at stake and speak out in support of the freedom to learn.”
“Americans United is absolutely appalled by the current wave of book banning that threatens public libraries, school libraries and even bookstores,” said Boston, “We’ve been in the thick of this fight since our founding 75 years ago, when books, magazines, films and stage plays were often censored because some religious groups labeled them offensive. Today, AU is proud to continue the battle by working alongside groups like the American Library Association, EveryLibrary and the National Coalition Against Censorship to safeguard the right of young people to read, learn and explore the world around them.”
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