Once again, parents are fighting for morals and decency. In Lander, Cheyenne and Gillette they are simply calling for libraries to obey laws that are already on the books.
In an annual game of pass-the-buck, parents approach local school boards during the summer and are rebuffed. They are told that there are policies and professional librarians in place. If they don’t like it, they can go to the legislature. When they do so each winter, the Wyoming Caucus and its Progressive allies make solemn speeches about “local control” and refuse to act—passing the buck back to the school boards.
After the summer of 2022, parents took at least four different bills to their legislators. Three of these: SF0177, Promoting obscenity—educational exception repeal; HB0220, Prohibiting pornography in schools; and HB0283, Promoting obscenity—educational exception amendment, were assigned to committee chairmen who blocked them from ever being heard. Only HB0087, Crimes of obscenity—revisions got a committee hearing and was killed by Representatives Andrew Byron, Steve Harshman, David Northrup, Ember Oakley, Liz Storer, and Dan Zwonitzer.
‘Round and ‘round we go.
This year two new elements have been added to the game. First is the reporting of Clair McFarland. Bravely, she has broken free of merely repeating the American Library Association’s talking points and is reporting to Wyoming citizens the actual contents of pornographic books.
On June 1, 2023 she published, “Explicit Book in Lander High School Has Sparked Uproar — Here’s What's In It” (Cowboy State Daily). The same book is also in the libraries of Teton, Campbell, Laramie, Natrona, Park, Sheridan, and Sweetwater counties—and most likely in your school’s library as well. Less than a week later, in her report, “Cheyenne Parents Fight Over Sex Books In Schools,” she reprinted sexually explicit portions of, “The Sun and Her Flowers” by Rupi Kaur.
This latter book falls squarely under the sex crimes punishable in Wyoming Statute 6-4-302 “Offenses against morals, decency and family: promoting obscenities.” When exposed at the June 5, 2023, meeting of the Laramie County School District No. 1 it even caused Board Chairman Tim Bolin to express concern that the spoken words might violate YouTube’s community standards!
It's not like the statute is unclear. Rather, the statute exempts libraries and schools, of all places! As Trustee, Rene Hinkle, acknowledged, it is “trained librarians using nationally recognized lists” who are bringing these books into libraries and schools knowing that they would be criminal elsewhere.
What happened to “Wyoming solutions to Wyoming problems?” Why are “nationally recognized lists” being used instead of Wyoming-generated lists? Local parents and neighbors care far more about the emotional well-being of their children than credentialed strangers.
This brings us to the second new development. Last week the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) waded into Wyoming. They labelled three groups, “Moms for Liberty – Laramie County, WY chapter”—along with the county chapters of Natrona and Converse—as “hate groups.” The rest of Wyoming has no such organizations. So, the SPLC generally designated all “Wyoming parents involved in education” as a fourth “hate group.”
Curiously, “Wyoming Families for Freedom” is excluded from the “hate” designation. The SPLC only hates parents objecting to obscenities. Following their guidance, the Department of Justice will now be on the lookout for moms and involved parents, but not for those involved in “Families for Freedom.”
This group advocates for an “opt-out policy.” Even books violating Wyoming Statute are approved for school children as long as their parents have the right to provide the school with a list of books that the children may not check out.
This “opt-out” procedure has two obvious flaws. First, it offers no way to prevent children from exposure to the pornography on the library shelves. They are only prohibited from checking it out. Second, it requires parents to distrust the judgment of school librarians and read every single book in the library (approx. 15,000) themselves. Why not, instead, hire librarians that can be trusted to know that the violation of obscenity statutes is wrong—whether it can be prosecuted, or not?
The very fact that school districts have a policy about books allowed in the library is an admission that some books are inappropriate. If books violating Wyoming statute are in the library despite these policies, those policies are obviously flawed. Two of last February’s proposed laws would have deleted the exemption that our libraries are exploiting.
This is only right. Wyoming’s constitution, Article 7, requires that state schools promote “health and morals.” W.S. 6-4 “Offenses against morals, decency and family” writes this article into statute. The exemption of any entity—especially schools—means that current Wyoming law violates the Wyoming Constitution. Legislators, trustees and administrators have a constitutional mandate to hold everyone, even schools and libraries, accountable.