I don’t live in the US and am not an expert on any of this State vs Fed stuff but it seems to be the case that the government at the State level CAN restrict speech and descriminate against you based on your sexual orientation? Because they’re targeting books/speech that are relavant to people, partly at least, due to them being in the LGBTQIA+ community. And it’s up to YOU to defend your right to access that speech by taking legal action? So a kind of ‘guilty until proven innocent’ adjacent scenario. I’m so confused and maybe I’m missing something but it sure FEELS like the 1st amendment is optional?
I assume they could also therefore remove books based on the race of the characters in the books or because of the subject matter being of particular relavance to people of colour? But I assume that’s happened before and been tested legally and that’s the process that’s happening now with the LGBTQIA+ book bans? Is it simply that the LGBTQIA+ community isn’t yet as robust in their advocacy, lobbying & litigation as they need to be? That they don’t have the equivalent of the NAACP on their side? Should they have to? Isn’t the 1st ammendment and anti-descrimination law pretty clear?
As someone living outside the USA, I have struggled to understand what’s going on there and why it’s allowed to happen when the 1st ammendment exists expressly to stop the government from suppressing speech, the restriction of which can be damaging to vulnerable communites. Take the story of Roy and Silo, about a same sex couple (of penguins for goodness sake?!) raising a child together. This being banned sends a message to children of same sex parents that there is something wrong with their parents / family unit. I find that disturbing enough, but to the child, it could be traumatizing. How would parents explain to their child that their favourite book has been removed from their library purely because the subject of the story is a family just like theirs?!