In a divided USA, what children read has become a burning issue and a culture war between progressive and conservative America. School libraries are the unlikely battleground for this war: Some want to ban authors they view as corrupting their children, others view this ban as reactionary censorship. This documentary focuses on the ideological fault lines of American society at the presidential election.
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00:00You
00:30I don't know.
01:00When I opened this email on August 14th, 2022, my hands started to shake, and I immediately began gasping for breath.
01:12You might be asking yourself, why did Amanda receive such an email? Surely she did something heinous.
01:21Amanda se retrouve otage d'une rumeur multiforme qui se répand alors aux Etats-Unis.
01:26En cause, une prétendue entreprise maléfique visant les enfants.
01:56A gay LGBT box isn't going to stop anyone from being gay.
02:00They're sexually explicit, they're pornographic, they're disgusting.
02:04But the district did prepare for the worse.
02:11They had police here, extra security, and even metal detectors at the doors.
02:15I love to read. I've always loved to read.
02:22I love to read. I've always loved to read.
02:29I wanted to be able to help kids find books that could take them to other worlds, learn about the world around them, become more empathetic.
02:37Learn about people that are not like them, but also see themselves in books.
02:44My name is Amanda Johns. I was born here in Louisiana.
02:49And I have lived here my entire life.
02:56I work at the same school that I attended middle school.
02:59First, I started as an English teacher and then I became a school librarian.
03:06And I've worked there for 22 years so far.
03:27As a school librarian, I've been following censorship for a year or two in schools.
03:36And I saw that content was going to be discussed at our public library meeting.
03:42And so I was hoping that they weren't going to try to censor books in our community.
03:49So I went to the public library board meeting just to talk about censorship.
03:54I'd like to call a meeting, Lauren, please.
03:56And I talked about how harmful it can be when you censor whole sections of society or books.
04:04The parents' own individual rights, more about censorship, particularly from the LGBTQ community or the BIPOC community and how harmful that is.
04:13It's not really about protecting children. It's about censoring the rights of others, targeting of books about or written by historically marginalized communities.
04:21It's about using fake library controversies for political gain and it's about money.
04:26It was just a speech on censorship. I didn't talk about any particular book. I just gave a blanket censorship speech.
04:31Thank you for allowing me to speak. That's all I did. It kind of blew up, though.
04:40The war against the bibliothèques begins in 2018, in Louisiana, in the community of Lafayette, in a little strange way.
04:57Hi, I'm Miss P. I am the drag queen for Drag Queen Story Hour this hour. Welcome!
05:03Réunir dans l'espace public toutes les communautés de la ville.
05:07Tel était le souci des bibliothécaires en accueillant cet atelier de contes pour enfants animé par des drag queens.
05:13Un moment de programmation parmi beaucoup d'autres. La réaction très hostile de certains parents est compréhensible. Ce sera le point de départ d'une véritable offensive politique.
05:38In other news, the Lafayette City Paris Council voting on a resolution that opposes the library's Drag Queen Story Time event.
05:48The majority of the City Council audience raised their hands in opposition to Drag Queen Story Time.
05:55It created this huge uproar and, of course, their whole messaging was, you're sexualizing children.
06:02And one of the leaders of the opposition to this program was Michael Lunsford.
06:09Well, originally we were founded because we found that our public officials were not telling the whole truth.
06:16Especially when it came to raising taxes, they would tell you the part that they wanted you to know so you would agree,
06:22oh, no, we have to raise taxes. And we would start doing research and find out,
06:27well, wait a minute, they have a surplus that they could operate for five years.
06:32How did it segue into pornography?
06:35Well, so the segue was Drag Queen Story Time.
06:45He used this protest against this one program to drum up this huge controversy about the library.
06:54They decided they were going to take a political stance and use your tax dollars to promote a political agenda in Lafayette.
07:01We said, that's not the role of the library.
07:08When the library director at the time decided, well, I'm going to show those no good conservatives a thing or two,
07:12we're going to have Drag Queen Story Time and we're going to punch him in the nose with this.
07:16And so, as far as I know, we are still, to this day, the only organization in the state of Louisiana,
07:23maybe in the nation, that has stopped a public-funded Drag Queen Story Time.
07:27And we did it. We stopped it.
07:29But the question became, well, whose idea was this?
07:32Where did this come from? Who's responsible?
07:36Well, a program coming to the Lafayette Public Library has become the topic of conversation across Acadiana.
07:43Drag Queen Story Time for Children.
07:46He took this one program and said, look, the library is trying to sexualize your children.
07:52And so, he sort of turned it into this culture war against the library.
07:57And so, he has brought it up again and again and again.
08:01Any time he wanted to have a book challenged,
08:04any time he wanted to bring up any controversy with regards to the library,
08:08you hear Drag Queen Story Time.
08:10There were also negative comments on social media.
08:13Some calling it sick, poisonous, disgusting.
08:16That's where the battle began.
08:18Once we started going through that process,
08:20we replaced every single one of those board members April of last year in 2023.
08:24Well, the president of the Lafayette Library Board of Control is tonight responding to new criticism.
08:29This comes after a woman was escorted out by deputies from yesterday's meeting during the public comment period.
08:35We know Ms. Armbruster stood on the street corner outside the library protesting Drag Queen Story Time.
08:40You're out of order.
08:41That's the voice of Lafayette Library Board of Control President Robert Judge
08:46ordering for Melanie Brevis to be removed from the room in a video that went viral on social media after Monday's meeting.
08:53Disturbing the piece does not mean disturbing to Robert Judge.
08:57What I was saying, I'm sure, was very disturbing to him, and I 100% meant for it to be.
09:03And I meant to say that so it would be on public record.
09:08What rule did she break?
09:10That's a violation of her free speech.
09:12I was not raising my voice.
09:14I was not making threats.
09:15I wasn't, you know, using any curse words.
09:19I was, you know, within my rights as a citizen to speak my opinion.
09:24And why are there two deputies in a room for this many people?
09:29He's had two sheriff's deputies always at the front of the room facing out to the audience.
09:35It's intimidating.
09:37And he had both of them escort me out.
09:44Well, everybody can see this?
09:46Yeah.
09:47This is a library.
09:48Do you not realize this is a library?
09:50Yeah.
09:51That's ridiculous.
09:52What's the rule?
09:53What's the rule?
09:58And then they came to my parish and allowed them to make choices for their own child
10:04without trampling on the rights of other parents.
10:07On the night I spoke up at the library meeting, I was one of almost 30 speakers who registered
10:13their concern about possible censorship and book banning.
10:16If the issue is really about parental rights and protecting children.
10:20Two men, one from out of town and one local, attended the meeting.
10:25For whatever reason, Livingston is where the librarian, who you may have interviewed by now,
10:32Amanda Jones resides.
10:34And she showed up at a library board of control meeting.
10:37I showed up at the same meeting.
10:38And she said, if you move these books, then you're not on the right side of history.
10:43Or something to that effect.
10:44We exposed that.
10:45We told the world this is what she said.
10:47It is not what I said, but this is what their website said about me.
10:54Even as obscenities have been thrown your way at these meetings...
10:58After I dared to speak, they zeroed in on yours truly.
11:02As we have seen in St. Tammany and Lafayette parishes, it's not really about protecting children.
11:08It's about censoring the rights of others, targeting of books about or written by historically marginalized...
11:14It's in the children's book in the library that they say is not pornography.
11:17When you ask them on another day, oh, that's not pornography.
11:19There's no pornography in the library.
11:20But when I read it out loud, it's pornography.
11:22I should be arrested.
11:23It doesn't...
11:24It doesn't even make sense to me.
11:27Citizens for New Louisiana, they have a website.
11:32And they have several social media pages across different platforms.
11:36They have posted that they are coming for all 64 parish libraries.
11:43in Louisiana.
11:45And so far, they've hit about five.
11:48They essentially accused me of sex crimes.
11:53That I was trying to push pornography on six-year-olds.
11:56Because it is illegal in Louisiana to give pornography to children.
12:01And that is very damaging.
12:02I'm an educator.
12:03I work with children.
12:05Do you know how damaging that is to my career?
12:08To say that?
12:10I've spent 22 years working in my community with children.
12:18And I've built up a solid reputation.
12:21And now half the community thinks I'm some kind of pedophile.
12:26Or they like to say the word groomer.
12:28Groomer or pedophile or pervert that wants to give kids pornography.
12:34And I would never do that.
12:36I would never do that.
12:37I would never do that.
12:38The student and professional work in my mind.
12:41The public institution and professional law.
12:44In the world ofraumatia is not an issue.
12:46Thousands of lawyers from four corners of the United States subisent an identical deal.
12:52We continue our inquiry in the Michigan.
12:57In this state very divided on the politics side,
13:00It's the notion of public library who makes polities.
13:04The Pen Club, association of American writers, has realized that more than 6,000 books were
13:10forbidden or imposed in order for 2021 and 2023.
13:34I am the author of Genderqueer, a memoir, which is one of the most challenged books in the United States right now.
13:43Genderqueer is the story of my life.
13:46It focuses specifically on memories that have to do with gender, identity, sexuality, and then coming out to family, friends.
13:54It includes a lot of illustrations that include sex acts.
13:59And so the mother brought this to the attention of the library here.
14:03And the library responded by moving the book behind the counter so that no one could see it unless you asked for it.
14:11You told me that it began with genderqueer, but then there was escalation.
14:15Yeah, it started to escalate, and I think that there, I know that there was a list circulating that came out.
14:23I don't know if it was Moms for Liberty or another one of these political action groups circulating lists of books
14:30that either talked about critical race theory, any kind of LGBT plus type of identity, but they had pretty much what we're hit list.
14:40Moms for Liberty is holding its national summit in Tampa this weekend.
14:43That convention kicking off today.
14:45Au départ, c'est une association locale de maman qui agit contre les fermetures d'écoles et autres restrictions liées au Covid en Floride.
14:53Mais elle se transforme rapidement en organisation nationale dotée d'ambition politique avec plus de 100 sections.
15:05Elle fait des bibliothèques un nouveau champ de bataille dans la guerre culturelle qui déchire les États-Unis.
15:12We have drawn a very clear line in the sand that says our school system is for educating kids, not indoctrinating kids.
15:24Moms for Liberty doesn't have like a national book list.
15:26There was never a list of books that we put out and said, parents, be concerned about these books.
15:30What is Book... No.
15:31What is... One moment.
15:32What is BookLooks.com?
15:34I'm aware of a website called BookLooks.com where parents can go and see some of the books that other parents are concerned about.
15:40BookLooks.com has been used in Florida extensively.
15:43It's essentially a cliff notes for books.
15:46Yeah.
15:47So you go through without even having to read the book.
15:48I'm going to just hold it up so our audience can see what it looks like.
15:50This is the one for all boys aren't blue, which is one of the books Moms for Liberty has pushed out.
15:54Everyone should go and see the content in this book.
15:56That's such a good idea.
15:57And so what happens is you can do keyword searches and find certain keywords.
16:01Like rape.
16:02You can find...
16:03Yeah.
16:04Or anal rape or dildo.
16:05You can find all sorts of keywords.
16:07Those types of words.
16:08Wait, hold on.
16:09I'm going to change my question.
16:10Then you can answer.
16:11I'm going to give you time to answer, but I've got to ask you first.
16:12No, yeah.
16:13I've got to ask the question.
16:14And so what you find is the keywords that you find, the N-word, anything, words like you just used.
16:18Then you'll get out of context passages from the book.
16:21And then based on that, Moms for Liberty members are going to places like Broward County School Board meetings,
16:27reading out of context passages from these books, and then demanding that the school board remove them.
16:34So what's the question?
16:35Yeah.
16:36The question I'm asking is, what is the expertise that you have and other Moms for Liberty advocates have to decide that an award winning book like All Boys Aren't Blue isn't appropriate for students to read?
16:48In what context is a strap on dildo acceptable for public school?
16:52And you want to promote and support this evil?
16:55These things go against nature itself.
16:58There was suddenly all these library board meetings, which are the most boring public meetings you could ever attend.
17:07Normally, there's no one who attends these meetings.
17:10It's just ridiculous that this is even a question, that we're banning books right now.
17:15Good versus evil is what it is.
17:19On Tuesday, voters in Jamestown Township rejected renewing a millage that would support the community's public library.
17:26It made me very sad because libraries are for everyone, no matter what walk of life you are from or what world view you hold.
17:35Libraries are there to welcome you and to be the space of public discourse and ideas.
17:41And we should welcome the ideas that libraries hold.
17:45And so to have one group of people be so adamant against another group of people really broke my heart.
17:52And I really never thought I'd see anything quite like that.
18:03Conservatives in Jamestown Township, Michigan, the same people constantly crying about free speech voted to defund their library because it has LGBTQ books.
18:12Without these funds, the library will be forced to close.
18:15You can even forget the homophobia for a minute.
18:17If you don't want your kid reading specific books, maybe look at what books they're bringing home.
18:21Parent your kid.
18:22If you only want your kid reading Christian books, start a book club at your church.
18:27This is just straight up outright homophobia.
18:29It's such a troubling story to cover.
18:36In America, I can speak for America, people are very happy.
18:42They have this beautiful view of what America used to be like.
18:46And anytime things change, they assume it's going to be for the worse.
18:50You can look back to the 1950s and families were so upset about rock and roll.
19:02They thought that Elvis Presley was going to like, like corrupt their children.
19:06The obscenity and vulgarity of the rock and roll music is obviously a means by which the white man and his children can be driven to the level with a nigger.
19:21Why I believe that is because I know how it feels when you sing it.
19:26I know what it does to you.
19:28The evil feeling that you feel when you sing it.
19:31Same sort of struggles they had with interracial marriage soon after that.
19:35The Lovings didn't know that it was a crime for a white person to marry a negro in Virginia.
19:40They found out the hard way.
19:43I think this is part of the same thing.
19:45As society begins to change, there is always a push back.
19:49People are worried that somehow these books are going to corrupt their children and literally turn them gay.
19:58There are five vectors of attacks, four books bans, and only one of them is the right to read.
20:09The others are anti-LGBTQ.
20:13There are attacks on black and brown communities as well.
20:16Very much, these are civil rights and human rights attacks.
20:19We could tell the history of the United States through the crossings of books and their censure.
20:26One of the most important things is the case Scopes Monkey, in 1925, on the freedom to teach at school the theory of the evolution of Charles Darwin.
20:37Charles Darwin's theory that all mankind had descended from a common ancestor, a so-called missing link, had set off fireworks.
20:44John T. Scopes, a Dayton biology teacher, had decided to test a new Tennessee law that forbade the teaching of any theory that denied the divine creation of man.
20:54He deliberately read Darwin's theory of evolution to his high school class, and just as deliberately, he was arrested and indicted.
21:01Then the whole nation jumped in with both feet.
21:04The issue was no longer the innocence or guilt of Scopes, but rather the final death struggle between two basic human philosophies, fundamentalism versus modernism.
21:15The monkey trial was a particular low moment for attacks on academia and attacks on schools.
21:29We're seeing similar situations in many states that are trying to outlaw teaching of critical race theory, trying to outlaw the teaching of gender studies and sexuality.
21:40President Salem Salisley said Patmos Library had a pride section on display featuring a book called Gender Queer.
21:47Combining that with the local level censorship activities.
21:52Started targeting the library and its funding because they believe that representation of LGBTQ plus people is the equivalent of grooming kids for sexual exploitation.
22:03Attacks coming from proxies of parent rights groups who are using the mantle of parental control and parental concern to extend their political reach.
22:12We're seeing the attacks on free expression combined with the attacks on the sex ed and gender studies as being almost a perfect storm for censorship.
22:22What we're doing at American principles project is we're building an NRA style organization for families.
22:29The left is winning this war.
22:32If you're not going to stand up for the family, if you're going to come for our kids, if you're going to try and destroy their innocence, if you're going to take away my rights as a parent, we're coming for you.
22:41We are going to unelect you.
22:42We are going to make sure that everyone knows that you think it's okay to sexualize kids if you're destroying the innocence of children and trying to destroy the American family.
22:51You're the worst villain of all and we're going to make you pay a price for that.
22:54When COVID restrictions came into place here, there was a big push against that.
23:04Especially in conservative communities. And what that did is it led a already created structure and communication between conservative people on political issues.
23:20To listen carefully to the determination of those who incitent parents to defend the American family against the sexualization of children, we understand the nature of this cultural war.
23:35It continues, by other means, a political struggle already engaged in the time of COVID.
23:40You started seeing organizations like Texans for vaccine choice form, Oklahomans for vaccine choice form.
23:46And that came out of this new concept at that time called health freedom or medical freedom.
23:52And that became linked to the Tea Party down in Texas and the libertarian movement.
23:57And they started taking a lot of money from donors that would fund the Tea Party and the political far right down in Texas would also fund these groups.
24:06And then in 2020, they started to protest against vaccines, but against masks and social distancing.
24:22And that's when it became a full on anti-science movement.
24:25These extremists, they pick up their causes.
24:30So the same extremists right now, three years ago, their cause was COVID and masks and they don't want to get vaccinated and they don't want to wear masks and all that.
24:41And now it's books and they just switched.
24:45Right now, we're seeing a rise in white Christian nationalism in the United States.
24:51It's people who are trying to force their religion on everyone else.
24:55They're trying to dominate, take the power, make everyone conform and do everything that they think is correct.
25:04America and Christianity are like baseball and apple pie.
25:09And we celebrate them together.
25:12Christian nationalism is a political movement that attempts to establish privilege and dominance for Christian people in the United States.
25:23The idea that this is a Christian nation that was founded by Christian people.
25:27And therefore, because I'm a Christian in the United States, I get an elevated place above everyone else at this table.
25:35By dint of my religious identity, I'm more of an American than you are.
25:41You hear language about war for God's army to mobilize a lot from Christian nationalists.
25:53You hear this in times when they feel most threatened.
25:58The United States will be majority minority in a few decades.
26:03And so there's a feeling on the part of Christians, especially white Christians,
26:08that they're losing their dominant place in American culture.
26:11They feel threatened.
26:15They believe the country has lost its way.
26:17We are facing an apocalypse is what they'll say.
26:20And when people feel threatened, they react.
26:24They act out.
26:26They strike with a vengeance.
26:28They get those tensions.
26:29Ban the books.
26:30Ban the books.
26:31Ban the books.
26:32Ban the books.
26:33Ban the books.
26:34Ban the books.
26:35Think of all the minds and hearts they are infecting.
26:39Ban the books.
26:40Ban the books.
26:41Ban the books.
26:42Let's ban those books.
26:43Ban the books.
26:44Our fragile little angels need protecting.
26:49So it's high time these disturbing books were all stacked up and burned.
26:55I know there was a book about book burning, Fahrenheit something or other,
26:59but I never read it because it was banned.
27:03Slavery, prostitution, and polygamy aren't nice.
27:07Since it's full of crap like that, let's ban the Bible.
27:12Ban the Bible.
27:13Ban the Bible.
27:15Ban the Bible.
27:16Ban the Bible.
27:17Think of all the minds and hearts it is infecting.
27:22Ban the Bible.
27:23Ban the Bible.
27:24Let's ban the Bible.
27:26Because our precious little angels need protecting.
27:34Politicians have known forever that it is much easier to go after a book,
27:38to censor a book, even to burn a book,
27:40than it is to go after individuals or populations.
27:43You see, they are not mad because we're burning.
27:47They're mad at what we are burning.
27:49Here in Nashville, they threw books like Harry Potter and Twilight into the fire.
27:54Many of the censorship actions that are happening around the country are really proxy attacks on people.
28:04I decided to sue Michael Lunsford and Ryan Thames from the Facebook page Bayou State of Mind for defamation.
28:20I had no choice.
28:21I had filed two criminal complaints, three criminal complaints total, two against the posts, and then one for the death threat.
28:30And nothing was done, I mean, nothing was done, nothing's been done.
28:34I'm all alone.
28:35I have, you know, I bought pepper spray, a taser.
28:39We got extra security cameras around my home.
28:47I'm even scared to go outside at night to throw away the garbage in the trash can.
28:51I felt like dragging my feet.
29:10I did not want to go in.
29:12I did not want to see those two men and their smug faces.
29:18Joseph Long, one of the attorneys for the other side, painted me out as some far-left liberal
29:35who wanted to stifle some poor parent's freedom of speech.
29:40But the judge seemed to have made up her mind.
29:43I never met her before, but I did remember her election campaign.
29:50I'm Erica Sledge, candidate for district court judge in Livingston, St. Helena, and Tanchpaho Parishes.
29:56I'm a conservative Christian.
29:58We deeply care about our community.
30:01We're involved with our children's school and church.
30:06It was really hard when the judge announced that it was just their opinion.
30:10It was really hard to hear that.
30:16I was shaking.
30:17I was so mad.
30:18I was so mad.
30:19I was shaking.
30:20And I've had to go to a lot of therapy.
30:22I'm very open with it.
30:23I've had to go to a lot of therapy when you're faced with this much hate in your community.
30:28I couldn't believe the judge was saying, oh, that's just their opinion.
30:31It's not their opinion.
30:33They essentially accused me of sex crimes.
30:37Well, if you look at her petition to the court, she asked for an injunctive relief, which means
30:46she wanted us to shut up.
30:48About her?
30:49About, well, it's not clear.
30:52If I'm not allowed to talk about her, I'm not allowed to talk about librarians.
30:55Am I not allowed to talk about, what am I not allowed to talk about?
30:58It's very heartbreaking because she's essentially saying that it's okay for these two men to
31:12target and harass me and defame me.
31:14She categorized me as a public figure, and so I am scared for what it means for other educators
31:23because you can just claim someone as a public figure, and so other educators or other librarians
31:31are going to be afraid or other citizens are going to be afraid to speak out.
31:35In Louisiana, the Parliament of the State is dominated by a very large majority républican.
31:57The library issue is what I would call a moral panic.
32:23Issues involving children are really easy political movements to pick up.
32:31You can get a lot of political oomph out of things used to protect children, and the book
32:38banning issue is just that right topic for a moral panic to create some political currency.
32:45Today, one of several library bills is going to be heard in committee.
32:53In its original state, the bill would have removed a Master's of Library Science degree from the
32:59list of qualifications to become a certified librarian in Louisiana.
33:03I think the bigger question for this committee is why there is so much contention among our library systems and the state.
33:15The chaos, the politicization of the Lafayette Parish Board of Control is all politics.
33:23Now, there's a bunch of cultural issues that surround all of this, and I'm fearful that that's what you're doing.
33:29You're politicizing and culturalizing an issue.
33:33It's just one of several library bills that are going to be heard this session.
33:36It's honestly one of the less extreme bills that are going to be heard.
33:43Give me the more extreme ones.
33:46The most extreme one was filed just a couple of days ago.
33:49It would criminalize the use of public funds for the American Library Association.
33:55My recommendation is to not take any action other than to vote no on this bill.
34:06I believe that there's issues on the left side that want to expose children to these ideas and want to encourage these ideas in children.
34:18And they also want to alienate children from their parents.
34:21This is classic Marxist theory, and the head of the American Library Association has admitted that she is a Marxist
34:29and that she is using her position to push her Marxist agenda to children.
34:34I didn't know that tweets more than two years old and long since auto-deleted would continue to animate the vanishingly small number of people who stand in opposition to libraries.
34:49That my public lectures would be screen recorded and subsequently mocked in online spaces.
34:54I don't know who's recording me now.
34:56You know, I got to operate as if that's happening.
34:59That my face would show up on PowerPoint slides at a library board meeting in a part of Louisiana I've never visited and never even heard of.
35:07That a library director in a small parish in that state would have her emails foiled for evidence that she and I were plotting together.
35:17Never met her.
35:18One of the covenants of communism is to separate children from parents, to separate communities of interest, to eliminate religion,
35:27to eliminate all of the things that bring us together as a community other than the government so that the government can control everything.
35:35And unfortunately, they've decided to go after our children to do this.
35:41From city to city an incredible hysterical panic spread.
35:45As the unimaginable becomes real.
35:48They come from another world to take over the bodies and souls of the people of our planet.
35:52Where did they come from?
35:53I don't know.
35:54They've been co-opted.
35:55They've been co-opted into this movement unwillingly.
35:57They'll absorb your minds, your memories.
36:00And most of which unknown to them.
36:03They're already here!
36:05You're next!
36:16This war against the bibliothèques
36:18s'emprend to a certain idea of the liberal and plural.
36:24Jusqu'où cette guerre peut-elle aller?
36:26Nous nous rendons dans le Missouri, où la tendance chrétienne nationaliste, à droite de la droite du parti républicain, est au pouvoir.
36:38Punished because of books, a new Missouri law goes into effect on Sunday.
36:42It limits the reading materials distributed at private and public school libraries.
36:46Outlawed are books containing anything that is considered sexually explicit.
36:50So, these are the books that we've removed from our high school library because of SB 775.
37:05SB 775 gets real specific with how it puts language into effect, how it uses language.
37:11And it does it in a way that makes the law, in my opinion, confusing and difficult to interpret.
37:16Which is why we see it interpreted wildly differently across the state in schools and districts.
37:22Missouri State Senator Rick Bratton added an amendment to this bill which would make it a class A misdemeanor
37:28if anyone provides visually explicit sexual material to a student.
37:32SB 775 does not use the word pornography when it's talking about materials in school libraries and in schools.
37:41It specifically creates new language.
37:43Because if it would say pornography, that would be it.
37:46There would be no problem.
37:47There is no pornography in any school library.
37:50So, it would not be an issue.
37:52But instead it creates new language, new definitions to then make it so that librarians
37:58and other educators get confused and afraid and overreact in many cases to this particular law.
38:08Penalty for breaking the law is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
38:15But with that, this becomes a sexual offense.
38:21And then you are on the sex offenders list and then you lose your teaching license.
38:27So, the repercussions are so much larger than the way they painted this.
38:36So, yes, librarians are afraid to purchase anything that they think might get them in trouble.
38:44The way that we interpret that law is we can't even have them on campus.
38:49They cannot be potentially available to students.
38:53So, these normally sit at my house, but today they're here with me in the car, but I won't take them into the building.
39:00But these are the three books that have come off the shelves.
39:03So, we have genderqueer and this one is one that many people have talked about.
39:10But this is taken off of our shelves because of a couple of specific images, not because of the story, but because of a couple of specific images that we feel make it possibility to be in violation of the law.
39:25The last one is The Handmaid's Tale.
39:28This is the graphic novel version.
39:30So, the novel still sits on the shelf, still in the library, but the graphic novel version has been pulled out because this law deals with visual material.
39:40And this image where The Handmaid is being raped is the one that we feel may be in violation of that law.
39:57So, this book is also one that has been taken out of circulation.
40:01I was asleep before.
40:05That's how we let it happen.
40:07When they slaughtered Congress, we didn't wake up.
40:10When they blamed terrorists and suspended the Constitution, we didn't wake up then either.
40:16The irony is incredible because this book describes a dystopian vision of America that we're not beginning to live in.
40:24There's an irony that this is a book that we felt is in violation of this law.
40:28And we weren't the only district that pulled this book likely because of that same image.
40:33And this is what I was saying earlier, that it gets so problematic because librarians don't have the ability to sit here and go through every page of a book to see if one particular image might be in violation of that law.
40:46This is what I will do to the growing books when I become Secretary of State.
40:51Valentina Gomez, burning books she says grooms kids.
40:55The books in question, Queer, ultimate LGBTQ guide for teens and naked.
41:02We're going to defund all the libraries that are having LGBTQ, DEI, critical race theory material in the children's section.
41:10Valentina Gomez cherche à se faire élire dans le Missouri.
41:15A former Marine, Rick Bratton, is a conservative fighter. Just like President Trump, he won't back down.
41:22Rick Bratton, lui, a été élu en 2020.
41:25Our faith, values, and freedom are under attack.
41:29As a United States Marine, I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and that oath never aspires me.
41:36Rick Bratton is the only candidate endorsed by Missouri Right to Life and rated A-plus by the NRA.
41:41Vote conservative Republican Rick Bratton for State Senate.
41:44You're the one who inserted an amendment banning explicit visual material into a completely different bill. Why?
41:55Oh, sure. You know, and I know a lot of people think, oh, you're banning books.
41:59No, it's all about age-appropriate content.
42:03It's about children accessing things that is well beyond what they should be accessing.
42:09Children have a right to their innocence, and we have an obligation to protect that.
42:16I always hear them say we need to protect the children, and I'll say, from what?
42:20I'll say, give me a title. Tell me a title right now. They never can give you a title.
42:25Which novels, by the way, are pornographic?
42:27Oh, there's a laundry list of them, and I'd be happy to provide those for you guys.
42:34I mean, I don't have the books right here in front of me.
42:36Give me a title. If somebody tells you that there is pornography or something that's going to affect children in the library, ask them a title.
42:43If they can't give you a title, there's nothing there. Nobody could ever give titles.
42:49You have a list of the books?
42:51Yes, we have a list of books that especially parents have brought to us that are in schools that they're outraged about.
42:58I've asked them point blank. Come show me. Come show me in this library.
43:02They can't show you. Well, we heard. You heard from where?
43:05If you attack books, you attack people. Because those books are their voices. Those are the way their stories are being told.
43:28We need to learn about and have acceptance of other cultures as well. If we're never allowed to read a story that represents someone who we're not, then we have a very limited view of the world.
43:50After being taken to a book that tells you stories of transgenres, we now take a look at people transgenres themselves.
44:05The legislators of Missouri are seeking to criminalize all individuals, educators, doctors, doctors and even parents who hold their own needs for children transgenres.
44:21This was a tough week and a sad week for a lot of Missourians. A lot of kids, a lot of kids who just are misunderstood.
44:33Kids that my colleagues don't know who they are, don't know what their life is like, don't know what their medical issues are, don't know what the process of fixing those are, yet they banned as much as they could.
44:50Daniel Bogart est le père de jumelles, jusqu'à ce que l'une d'elles ressent en elle une différence.
44:56From really the first moments that my son could express anything about himself or choose anything, he was choosing boy stuff.
45:07He's got a twin sister who was always into purple and pink and unicorns and sparkles.
45:12And from the very earliest stages, he wanted nothing to do with that.
45:20He wanted trucks and boy clothes and almost immediately after that, he started asking for a short boy's haircut.
45:31He looked at us right afterwards and he said, I'm a boy.
45:33And that was it.
45:39Good morning, everyone.
45:41It's so good to see you.
45:43It's so great to be here this morning.
45:44We're glad that all the churches in the synagogue are here this morning.
45:47The first thing that you learn, it is the first thing that you learn when you love a trans young person and you live in a red state, is that you have to protect them from their government.
46:07The first person, the first people I told that my kid was trans before we told his grandparents, before we told his rabbis, before we told his friends, we told the general laws committee of the Missouri house because we knew immediately that we had to protect him.
46:28The first people I told were Pharaoh.
46:40There's this story in the Zohar, the ancient mystical text of the Jewish people that says that when you entered into Pharaoh's palace, it was like a snake coiled in itself, that every step you took was deeper and deeper into supernal evil.
46:54And this is what it feels like when you walk into our state capital in Jeff City.
47:02It feels like you are walking into Pharaoh's palace.
47:13We leave at 430 in the morning to drive two hours so that we can have two minutes to beg them to stop terrorizing our kids and our families.
47:22So for the last few years, I've been going to the capital over and over again each session.
47:38It's incredibly frustrating to go down there and get two minutes at best to beg our representatives just to leave us alone.
47:46My name is Rabbi Daniel Bogard. I'm a rabbi of one of the largest Jewish communities here in the state of Missouri.
48:01I'm a parent of a 10 year old trans boy and I am here because I am fighting desperately to be able to stay in my home and not have to flee the state.
48:12But the thing to understand is that it's actually surprisingly easy to be a parent to a trans kid.
48:22The hard part, I mean it, the only hard part we have experienced is you all.
48:30You sponsored the ban of explicit sexual imagery in books.
48:37You are behind the legislation banning any help to transgender children.
48:42Is there a connection in your eyes?
48:44Well, yeah, I mean, we're talking children again.
48:47You know, we don't consent to the children smoking cigarettes, getting tattoos on their face, you know, playing in the street on their own, driving cars, taking out mortgages because they're not competent and capable to be able to give consent to that.
49:02They're not capable of that. So why is it with this one issue that all of a sudden, oh, hey, you know, little Jimmy or Susie that's four years old, they know that, you know, they're a different gender and we're going to not only, you know, come alongside you, we're going to mutilate you and give you medication that's going to permanently scar you forever.
49:23And I'm a father of five. And I can tell you, I know that children don't have the mental wherewithal to be able to make these sort of decisions that affect them the rest of their lives.
49:35And they need to be protected, not utilized as a prop to advance an ideology that's going to detrimentally harm them forever.
49:43En 2023, le Missouri a rejoint les 23 États de l'Union qui restreignent l'accès des élèves transgenres aux activités sportives à l'école.
50:03There were literally more bills in the Missouri legislature last year trying to prevent trans kids from playing sports with their friends than there are trans kids in the state of Missouri who have asked to participate in high school athletics.
50:18This is not a real issue. It doesn't exist as a political reality. It's just a bludgeon that Republican legislators can use to to really distract the public while they steal the levers of democracy.
50:33Gentlemen, this is the only issue that I take personally. And I've made it clear that we can agree to disagree and still love each other and still move forward unless and I'm not the first person to say this.
50:55This came from James Baldwin unless the root of our disagreement is in my right to exist. And that's what you're doing with this legislation.
51:07I was afraid of people like you growing up and I grew up in Hickory County, Missouri. I grew up in a school district that would vote tomorrow to put this in place.
51:15And for 18 years, I walked around with nice people like you who took me to ballgames, who told me how smart I was, and who went to the ballot and voted for crap like this.
51:31And I couldn't wait to get out. I couldn't wait to get out. I couldn't wait to move to a part of our state that would reject this stuff in a minute.
51:42I couldn't wait. And thank God I made it. Thank God I made it out.
51:46And I think every day of the kids who are still there, who haven't made it out, who haven't escaped from this kind of bigotry.
51:57Gentlemen, I'm not afraid of you anymore, because you're going to lose. You may win this today, but you're going to lose. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
52:11There are certain individuals in our state who do not have rights. Women who are pregnant, for instance, do not have the right to seek the care that they might need through the course of their pregnancy.
52:22Children who are LGBT, especially our transgender children, are not able to seek the health care that they need.
52:29They are not able to use the names and the pronouns that they want to use in school.
52:35Or not able to read the books that they want to read in school.
52:39And so that's the goal and the aim of some of the people I work with, is to make sure, frankly, that they don't exist.
52:46So that they don't have the same rights that they have.
52:50The Bible scripture is paramount to the things that we advance.
53:02It is to me, I am a born-again Christian, but so were our founders.
53:07The very framework of our nation was inspired by that.
53:11It was people of faith, and it culminated in our form of government.
53:16Do you think America should be an exclusively Christian country?
53:19Uh, yes. I think that it should be a Christian country.
53:24We have many that say we're a secular humanist nation.
53:28That's emphatically false.
53:30You can look at our national heritage and see that that's not the case.
53:34That's why we see such a cultural divide.
53:37I can no more separate my faith than I can oxygen, you know, from the breath that I take.
53:46The right path is to keep America a Christ-like America.
53:50And the man for the mission is Trump.
53:54So we need to follow Trump.
53:57Wow, thank you.
53:59USA! USA! USA! USA!
54:03My fellow Americans, our movement is far from over.
54:06In fact, our fight has only just begun.
54:11We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God.
54:29There are so many Christian nationalists who do not think democracy is a sacred value.
54:42For them, they have a God-given right to rule the nation.
54:46They are the heirs of the American founding.
54:48And if they can't reach power and maintain power by voting, by democratic processes, then they're willing to overstep those bounds and take power any way possible.
55:01They get what the world is trying to praise the listen.
55:19Loving a trans kid in a red state, you immediately realize you have to protect them from their
55:35government.
55:38Every loving parent of a trans kid that I know in a red state is up at night scared that
55:44the government is going to come for their kids.
55:47In the state of Texas right now and to a different level in Florida, social services, family services
55:59is being sent out by the attorney general, by the governor to open investigations of
56:05child abuse of parents who are just following the best advice of their doctors.
56:12New tonight, despite moving out of Texas, some families with kids who are transgender are
56:16under investigation for alleged child abuse, even after leaving the state of Texas.
56:22I had six or seven death threats last year of my life.
56:26And so there was often a police officer outside of my home.
56:30And I was never scared, I don't know why, but I was never scared of being murdered.
56:36The fear was always what happens when that same police officer instead comes to my door
56:42to try to take my kid.
56:56So this is my stuff that we had for our battle of the books today.
57:07What is the battle of the books?
57:09We had ten schools come today and we had a competition where we were competing.
57:19and trivia questions about all of the books and we had 12 titles and we had
57:23five kids from each school and so they came and they answered trivia questions
57:27about all the books they read and then we also had author visits we had author
57:31visit they had t-shirts we had pizza we had free books giveaway all that it was
57:36really fun so part of the prizes for the kids for getting to come our local
57:42bookstore brought free books so every kid got to pick two books and we had a
57:46big table and every kid got to go through and pick two free books and they
57:51also got gift certificates to the local bookstore we had trophies so we had
57:56ribbons every kid got pizza and coke and we played games it was just a really good
58:03time we were here for about three hours where is the pornography books in the
58:07package that would be nowhere that would be never anywhere you can see it's all
58:14it's all books written for children
58:44so
58:46so
58:50so
58:51so
58:54so