Kerby Anderson

As Pride Month is ending, it is worth revisiting an event that took place on the South Lawn of the White House. President Biden hosted an event for families with LGBTQ kids. That is where the president announced he would appoint a “banned book czar.” This person’s job apparently is to encourage libraries to stock books dealing with sexual issues that I really can’t even discuss in much detail in this commentary.

David Harsanyi had a suggestion for the president. He argues that “if banned books are harmless, Joe Biden should read them to kids.” He even suggests that the president read to these young people on television. He even suggests that Jill Biden might be another person to read these books to impressionable young people.

Of course, he will not do this because the sexual descriptions of what boys and girls do to each other would be offensive. There are vivid descriptions of sexual organs and graphic descriptions of various forms of sex. If you want to follow the link, you can read what is in some of these books.

On my radio program, I reminded my listeners what some concerned parents did years ago at a shareholder meeting for music companies. They read some of the offensive and decadent lyrics of rap artists they represented. More recently, parents and even students have read excerpts from some of these books at school board meetings. In every case, the audience was shocked and music executives and school board members told them to stop.

It is easy to talk about book banning in the abstract. It is quite another to see and hear what is in some of these books. There is a reason parents and even some teachers and administrators don’t want sexually explicit books in the library. That is also the reason you will never hear that the president read these books to students.