League City Council votes to restrict minor access to certain books, some residents call it discrimination
LEAGUE CITY, Texas - The League City Council voted for a measure that will prohibit the use of tax dollars to purchase or stock certain books on their library shelves.
Mayor Pro Temp Andy Mann and Councilman Justin Hicks added a resolution that proposes books that contain obscenity, including rape, gender ideology, pedophilia, and or incest, be removed from the Young Adults section of the Helen Hall Library.
Also included in the measure are books that depict any type of sex, nudity, or sexual preference topics where the intended audience is under the age of 10.
Nearly 70 residents gave their take on the measure, with the majority of those who spoke being against it. One woman who shared her personal experience about being sexually assaulted said the books that contained some subject on abuse helped to save her life.
"Young women like me who had done more…who accomplished more, and survived what they (abusers) did to them," she says. "I found language to talk about what happened to me. And if we pass such a broad resolution we take that ability away from our children."
Parents who were for the proposal also spoke – many of them reading graphic excerpts from books they said they checked out at Helen Hall.
Many of the books, like Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and YOU, My Own Way, Here and Queer: A Queer Girl's Guide to Life, and Be Gay, Do Comics, are targeted at children as young as 8-years-old. Some of those books have been included in censorship debates in other states.
"If a parent wants their child exposed to that material, they can purchase it at their own home, but not in a public place," says one parent. "If anyone votes against this, I will have you unelected."
The council voted 4 – 3 to the resolution, but with an amendment. Books containing gender ideology and ideologue human sexuality will not be included in the restriction. Many of the residents in opposition said they will try to appeal the decision. This will also come with a committee of residents that will review books to be placed in the library before they are purchased.