Idaho Republicans’ plan to criminalize the work of librarians is ‘government overreach’

Raise your hand if you are against “government overreach.” Can anyone disagree with that simplistic statement?

Republicans, especially their growing numbers of extremists, just love that “government overreach” tag. Yet they happily overreach when it fits their narrow cultural and political beliefs despite campaign promises to dedicate their work to our “freedoms.” They couch their candidacies in generalities and clichés from the politician’s handbook, but then bring an agenda that dictates how the rest of us should lead our personal lives.

I noticed the hypocrisy of those who say one thing and do another recently when Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, contrary to her website pledge to fight against “government overreach,” introduced a bill to hold employees of a school, college, university, museum, or public library criminally liable for loaning a book or “material harmful to minors.”

The original statute already forbade such material from getting into the hands of minors, but DeMordaunt decided that just wasn’t far enough and introduced a bill to criminalize librarians for violating the statute.

She is picking up on one of the extreme right’s favorite whipping boys, books that don’t fit nicely into their microscopic and backward view of the world. In short, this is book banning, a courtesy of the extremist agenda far-right GOPers of Idaho carry in their legislative backpacks.

Her book-banning tactics are nothing new. From ancient history to modern times, dictators, religious fanatics, Nazis, and other authoritarian governments have banned or burned books. Wrestling with what books are harmful to people under 18 or older usually comes down to figuring out what is obscene to the “holier-than-thou self-appointed” regulators and what is not.

The challenge in a pluralistic society with legislation criminalizing the work of librarians is determining whose moral, religious or cultural standards shall we use to make the call on what act of lending a particular book qualifies as a crime and what book is okay to hand off to a 17-year-old.

The radical right has demonstrated lately that it has no such problem with such definition. It steps in with dogmatic assertion and applies its own standard that the rest of the community is then forced to follow.

One of their recent favorites bans books that remind readers of an American history riddled with racist governments and policies of our past which, if not studied and acknowledged as a violation of the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, will hollow out the teaching of history and lead to a new generation of racism and ignorance.

The far right is busy commandeering school boards to reflect their own narrow agendas in Idaho, using harassment to get members who don’t follow their orders to resign in frustration and disgust. What’s at work in city councils and school boards across the nation is an attack on teachers, librarians, anyone who bears responsibility for framing a student’s education in the 21st century. They choose to impose their own religious beliefs, cultural trappings and jaded historical interpretations on all Americans.

Instead of allowing public libraries to work with concerned parents on how to assure age-appropriate books for readers in a library or school, they choose the option that gets them the most attention, setting themselves up as heroes of the far right who pontificate on what is harmful and what is not.

Whether it’s race or sexuality, we live in a world today that is more diverse in thought and behavior than those who came before us. But leave it to the high priests of the far-right to shelter our kids from that part of American history when black Americans were lynched for the color of their skin and gays were thrown out of work or worse because of their sexual orientation.

God forbid if a book confronts these issues head on to help students understand the path of progress in American history. As Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” There is nothing in understanding our path toward justice that should make students hate their country or feel associated guilt. Perhaps it is the progress toward justice and equality that extremists hope to shield and stall.

The American Library Association reports there were 330 challenges to books in the fall of 2021, the handiwork of a network of extremists who share strategies and plans to disrupt public education and libraries. It should come as no shock that DeMordaunt’s bill to criminalize the work of librarians would show up in Idaho.

The bill appears dead for now since Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Windner called it “mischief” and declared it would not get a hearing. But make no mistake about it. Bills like this have babies, and they will come back to haunt those who believe in our fundamental freedoms. Extremists hold themselves up as defenders of our freedoms, but their “government overreach” belies their true intentions.

True guardians of liberty will keep a watchful eye for the hypocrisy of right-wing incursions into our freedoms and then act accordingly. Write to support those who protect your freedoms and write to differ with and discourage those who grab headlines by assaulting our freedoms. Contribute to candidates who fight such nonsense as criminalizing librarians and then vote to support them at the polls.