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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 29, 2022 11:58 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Barbara Gleim |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Removing Obscene Material from Our School Libraries (prior HB 2815) |
| I will be introducing legislation to remove an exemption currently allowing school libraries to possess and exhibit any legally obscene, even highly sexual, content. Under our current criminal law, no one may publicly exhibit or provide to a minor legally obscene materials. This can include materials which are so shocking as to qualify as sexual bestiality, sadomasochistic abuse, and patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual activity. But while this prohibition applies generally across the Commonwealth, our current law also includes a puzzling exemption allowing any library in the state not only to possess these very same materials, but also to exhibit them and to make them available to minors. My bill will remove this exemption for primary and secondary school libraries. To be clear, current law does not prohibit all sexual content whatsoever - only obscene content, as that label has developed under our Constitution. Current law also does not prohibit subject matter which, when taken as a whole, has serious literary, artistic, political, educational or scientific value. I hope you will join me in sponsoring this legislation to protect our children from being exposed to utterly inappropriate content in their school libraries. Previous cosponsors of HB 2815, 2021-2022: M. Mackenzie, Bernstine, R. Mackenzie, Maloney, Pickett, Roae, Rossi, Ryan, Stambaugh, Moul, Hamm, Jozwiak, Smith, Owlett, Zimmerman, Keefer |
Introduced as HB209