The Texas Legislature Just Accidentally Banned the Bible from School Libraries

Oops

In a story about book banning last month, I opened with this line: “Every time I think I’ve run out of things to rant about, some elected official in my state proves me wrong.” That article referred specifically to county commissioners in a local school district, but my prophetic comment applies just as well to the merry pranksters in Austin who continually steer the larger ship of state directly onto a reef in the midst of a hurricane. At least they give me something to write about.

In keeping with that nautical theme, consider this scene from the film The Hunt for Red October (if you have not seen the film, this is a major spoiler). As Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius (played by the amazing Sean Connery) attempts to defect to the United States with the submarine Red October, fellow Soviet sub Konovalov tries to destroy Red October with a torpedo to prevent this. Red October, however, performs a maneuver which diverts the torpedo back toward Konovalov. Just before the torpedo destroys Konovalov, the Executive Officer of Konovalov tells Captain Viktor Tupolev this:

“You arrogant ass, you’ve killed us!”

It’s a terrific scene, but what does it have to do with the ongoing menace that is the effort to ban books? I think it applies because surely an astute film-loving politician would recognize the similarities with HB 900, a bill intended to keep sexually explicit materials out of school libraries, that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is about to sign into law.

According to a story in the Texas Tribune, one of the provisions of the bill requires all companies selling to school libraries, librarians, and teachers in Texas to assign ratings to books “based on the presence of depictions or references to sex.” A book would receive a “sexually relevant” rating if the material describes or portrays sexual activity and is part of the required school curriculum; it would receive a “sexually explicit” rating if the material describing or portraying sexual behavior is “patently offensive” and not part of required curriculum; Texas state law defines “patently offensive” as material that is an “affront to current community standards of decency,” one of the vaguest and most easily abused definitions I have ever encountered.

As reported in Shelf Awareness, perhaps the most ridiculous section of the bill affects independent bookstores in the same way it impacts major textbook distributors. Moving forward, any company selling books to Texas schools must send the Texas Education Agency a list of every book they have ever sold to a teacher, librarian, or school that qualifies for a sexual rating and is in active use. The stores also are required to issue recalls for any sexually explicit books. If the TEA decides that a bookstore has incorrectly rated books, it can be banned from doing business with schools in the future.

As a former bookstore owner, I can assure you that, setting aside the censorship aspects, this is logistically impossible. Most bookstores have neither the time, the staff, nor the other resources such a requirement involves. But that’s a rant for another day.

Where this falls into Hunt for Red October/torpedoing yourself in the foot territory is in that “affront to current community standards of decency” line. The bill’s author is Rep. Jared Patterson, who mentions in his official biography on the Texas Legislature website that he and his family are members of First Baptist Church of Frisco. The State Senator who pushed the bill through the Texas Senate is Angela Paxton (wife of recently impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton), and her biography states she is a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

I have to wonder if Rep. Patterson and Sen. Paxton would find the following scenes from a book “an affront to current community standards of decency:”

• After a cataclysm destroys their city, two sisters inexplicably decide the only way they will ever have children is to get their father drunk and have sex with him, which they do.
• To show contempt for his father the king, a prince sleeps with his father’s concubines. In public.
• A king is hanging out one day when he sees a woman bathing. They hook up, she gets pregnant, and to keep her husband from finding out about the affair the king has the dude killed.

Outrageous, right? After all, Sen. Paxton said “We’re not talking about a certain type of sexual activity. We’re talking about sexually explicit of any sort. It doesn’t belong in front of the eyes and in the minds of kids.” Surely the pastors of Prestonwood and FBC-Frisco would not approve of this semi-pornography. They surely wouldn’t preach from such a book every Sunday…except they do.

All three of the scenes above are from the Bible:

• The story of Lot and his daughters following the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:30–36 (NIV).
• King David’s son Absalom sleeps with David’s concubines in public in 2 Samuel 16:19–22 (NIV).
• The story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11:1–27. How ironic would it be if Rep. Patterson was listening to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” while writing the bill?

Oops.

I am not saying that there should not be age-appropriate guidelines in our school libraries. We set such guidelines (and restrictions) on everything from films (you obviously should not let a six-year-old watch Pulp Fiction) to the minimum age for operating a vehicle. In most cases, these decisions simply require something in short supply lately: common sense.

It is a slippery slope when you start evaluating books using the vaguest language possible, however. The bill is clearly targeted at a certain type of “sexually explicit” material (despite Sen. Paxton’s denials), yet it opens a Pandora’s Box that I’m sure its authors never intended. But when you’re an arsonist, sometimes you burn yourself; sometimes, you even blow up your own submarine.

If you enjoyed this story, you can support my writing directly by leaving a tip below using the small (and kind of weird) hand icon (you tip waiters and bartenders, so why not writers?).

If you’re not a Medium member, you can join here