We went to the library in Ozark to get our 2 year old some more books. I found a Cailou book for her, flipped through it like we do, just to check first. Didn’t see anything that immediately stood out as inappropriate for that age level, so we checked the book out and took it home. My wife got to reading the book to our toddler and realized Cailou tells his new baby sister that he hates her; she didn’t skip over this part or try to hide it from our toddler. She continued reading. And then… at the end of the book, she went back to that page. She explained to our toddler what hate means, how it’s an ugly word and shouldn’t really be used out of anger and all that.

It’s the job of the parents to teach our kids what they see on TV and read in books ISNT always real, the outcomes aren’t the same in real life, consequences. Banning that Cailou book in the library wouldn’t have helped anything. If anything, banning that book because that little boy says he hates a person would take away a teaching moment for parents and their kids. Parents HAVE to start parenting their own kids. Government involvement and restrictions are not heathy. Our kids deserve to have every angle of every story, even the worst ones. That’s true, unadulterated education.

If we don't all stick up for intellectual freedom, one day the censors will be gunning for the materials YOU think are important, but by then it will be too late.

The whole Ashcroft family is composed of ideologues who are members of a Christian sect that believe speaking in tongues is real. These are the same people who think talking about LGTBQ+ issues AT ALL is to be interested too much in SEX.

Whose sexual interests are we talking about, Jay? Hmm??

This is an offense to a wide swath of Missourians who the right-wingers are more than happy to leave behind/insult/trample on in the their relentless pursuit for the most fundamentalist of states title.

The important part here is the funding removal. ALEC and the GOP have been gunning to cut library funding for years. They don’t actually care about protecting anyone.

Also can we talk about the way the GOP constantly tries to supervise and regulate female-dominated professions? Librarians, as a general rule, are highly educated professionals with extensive training in curating and managing book collections. The majority of them are also women. The audacity of these mediocre men thinking they know better. It’s the same with teachers. Clearly the wimmins need guidance and supervision from their betters. Ugh.

Jay Ashcroft really needs a fire lit under his ass. I know we have idiots like Josh Hawley and Parson, but let's not let Ashcroft fly under the radar. The dude begged Roy Blunt to not vote to protect marriages for same-sex and interracial couples. Dude is living 50 years in the past.

From the article: A 30-day window for public input opens November 15. You can submit comments in the following ways:

• By email to comments@sos.mo.gov. Type the proposed rule number, 15 CSR 30-200.015, in the subject field.
• By mail to Missouri Secretary of State, P.O. Box 1767, Jefferson City, MO 65102.

Thanks for sharing this. It’s almost embarrassing how transparent the whole thing is. It’s not, nor has it ever, been about protecting kids. It’s a political gambit capitalizing on gullible idiots and bigots

It's not exaggerating when I say this book banning movement from the GOP is VERY fascist adjacent, though I doubt it'll reach the point of book burning purely for optics sake, since that's so associated with Nazism and authoritarianism. But when you look up what books the Nazis actually burned you'll probably notice an unsettling pattern.

Ashcroft is a small minded man … just like his father

Don't just complain on reddit, folks. That will do nothing. Send an email before Dec 15. You remember what emails are, right?

I posted this the last time this came up, but in addition to the SGCL's statement OP linked to, the Missouri Library Association also has a statement with a form that can be filled out to oppose the rule.
For those curious, the full text of the proposed rule is available here.

There's also been a pretty ridiculous local Nextdoor thread going on about it.

As a homeless person I really value the libraries and will support this cause. Not the censorship...I mean the anticensorship cause. I support not pulling funding from libraries. I hope I'm making sense 🤔

Definitely don't think in the age of the internet (the world's largest library) that banning books makes any sense at all anyway. its really boomer-esque or archaic that they think this makes any sense. In fact the reason I sought out and read "catcher in the rye" was because of the cultural taboo and history surrounding it. If anything banning books just makes people want to read them.

Email sent. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

I thought conservative values = less government. This sounds like the opposite.

I saw recently that Jonesboro, Arkansas, which isn't that far away, passed a ballot measure to cut library funding based on the library's actions. So messed up. https://www.kait8.com/2022/11/09/proposal-cut-funding-jonesboro-library-approved/

Good.