Further Book Banning Drama in Utah

As a resident of Utah, I try to keep my eye out for the pro-censorship activities here. I’ve written a bit about HB374 and why it has no real legal content to it. Well the Utah Attorney General’s office has issued a memo basically stating the same thing but in more detail. The memo illustrates that the basic requirements of obscenity law still prevail and cannot be ignored. It even has helpful little examples. Such as:

This memo has seriously angered the Utah Parents United, Natalie Cline, and now a group of Republican legislators who are desperate to censor what they personally don’t like. In an op-ed, Rep. Karianne Lisonbee argues, in essence, that the AG is wrong. But first she engages in a bait and switch that these folks love by asserting, with the only evidence being a news story, that “Pornography is an addictive stimulant.” (And what she probably doesn’t want to engage with is that the best answer to the bad lessons taught by a lot of porn is for sex-positive sex education). This is an irrelevancy because none of the books the UPU complains of are pornography, legally obscene, or harmful to minors. This is because, at minimum, the legal requirements mandate consideration of the book as a whole and the UPU censors refuse to do that. A sex scene is not pornography or obscenity. As the Supreme Court made clear 65 years ago, “sex and obscenity are not synonymous.” If sex is sufficient to be declared obscene, a whole lot of major literary works, art, religious texts like the Bible, would have to be purged from libraries, bookstores, and Amazon.

I will say that at least Lisonbee nods towards the clear nature of law but does so in a way that still tries to deflect. She notes that obscenity standard from Miller v. California (1973) but suggests that it is outdated because it “was decided before pornography was widely understood as an addictive stimulant.” Literally this argument was well-known and made frequently at the time with the assertion being that “addicts” were then turning to rape and sexual assault. (But again, not a single one of these books is “porn.”) She also then claims that the case has no bearing on “harmful to minors” issues but that ignores that First Amendment governs there as well; the law still requires all the same requirements as obscenity law but the reference group is minors and not adults. She then invokes another provision of Utah law, which again ignores the terms of the law as to merit, and the background principles of obscenity law that the AG noted still controlled.

All of this is just a smoke screen for censorship of what Lisonbee and book banners don’t like. Nothing noted by the UPU (and I’ve read nearly all of their complaints made in public) comes anywhere near the legal standard of obscenity. And the claims of Lisonbee that this is only about school libraries is also off base. After all, HB374 grounds itself in the state’s harmful to minor statute. Now if these books actually did violate that statute, it would mean that they couldn’t be sold anywhere in the state to minors; it might even criminalize parents providing the books but I’d have to look at the statute more clearly. That’s the nature of the law. Luckily the law doesn’t allow this and Lisonbee’s attempt to pretend otherwise falls short once again.

This may also be way the censorship brigade is turning to “ratings.” The UPU’s pro-censorship Facebook group is now pushing their supposedly objective ratings system. According to the group’s leader, one member is “speed reading” every book to give it a rating. As I recall their early standards, these ratings included everything from swearing, sex, to having LGBTQ characters in it. But yeah, it is about “obscenity” and “porn.” And the book challenges filed by this leader also demonstrate that this is all a lie as she sought the removal of books that, by her own definition, are not “porn.” They have reportedly started to circulate their “ratings,” which ape the silly MPAA movie ratings, at schools to drum up additional anger.

The good news in Lisonbee’s column is that it was triggered by at least one “large district” (I assume Salt Lake but don’t know for sure) refusing to remove two books she strategically identifies as “indecent” rather than “porn.” This is great news. After all, nothing in the school library is required reading and librarians in schools have policies to restrict access as parents demand. But again what Lisonbee and others want to do is to use the state to make sure they control the reading choices of other people’s kids. It’s the censorship mindset and one I hope our schools continue to reject but fear that some will quietly start to avoid topics in fear of harassment and retribution. We’ve already seen this in school districts like Davis that prohibit Pride flags and ally stickers from teachers.

Edited: When posting this I saw Lisonbee claim on social media that the AG’s office was reviewing the memo and claiming it went out without proper vetting. This is pretty clearly evidence of political pressure on the AG to change the obvious and easy legal conclusions. I also just remembered that Lisonbee was the force behind trying to keep conversion therapy for queer and trans kids legal in Utah. As I recall, she wanted to remove trans kids completely from the bill, allowing in essence psychological and physical coercive “therapies.” This is why I called her for a time, the child torture representative until I again forgot about her.