Oklahoma’s Edmond Public School district has petitioned the state Supreme Court to rule on a book ban directive from the State Board of Education.

Edmond Public Schools has petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to intervene in a dispute over efforts to ban two national bestselling books

Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Ryan Walters has already made headlines for sending context-free porn to his fellow lawmakers. He’s now accusing one of the school districts under his jurisdiction of supporting the exposure of children to what he describes as “pornography” in schools. What horrendous, degenerate, pornographic display of hedonism is Walters’ administration accusing teachers of hiding in libraries? Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Jeannette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle.

Yesterday, Edmond Public Schools petitioned the state Supreme Court to rule on a threat from the Oklahoma Department of Education, headed by Walters, to remove the two books — or face consequences. The dispute between Walters and the school district is just the latest in a long list of culture war battles staked out by the “anti-woke,” porn-obsessed superintendent.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    5·
    7 months ago

    I haven’t read The Kite Runner, but I do know that it’s about a child and was on the NYT bestseller list for two years.

    I’m guessing this idiot is some QAnon crazy who thinks that the evil Marxist NYT is grooming children by making a book telling children to have consenting sex with adults a bestseller for two years.

    • Regna@lemmy.world
      6·
      7 months ago

      I have read The Kite Runner, and it contains situations involving manipulation and sexual abuse including rape. However hard it is to read in some parts (and especially if you’re grown and can read a lot into the obvious mental and physical abuse of children that perhaps isn’t always obvious to actual children), it is a damn good book showing life, love and hope from a non-western perspective.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        6·
        7 months ago

        That doesn’t sound like something that would belong in an elementary school library, but I also doubt that it is in elementary school libraries. If it’s in schools at all, it’s probably in high school libraries, and high schoolers can handle that.

        I read The Handmaid’s Tale in high school. As you’re probably aware even if you haven’t read the book, seen the film or watched the TV series, the main character is raped over and over and it is legal and done with the government’s blessing. It didn’t traumatize me or turn me into a rapist or anything like that. Did it scare me? Sure. Because it was so plausible. But it should have scared me. That was the point.

        I had a friend in high school who loved Steven King. I’ve never read It or seen the movies, but I know the book has a child orgy scene. She wasn’t scarred by it. She’s a good and loving parent now. Steven King didn’t destroy her.

        And then, of course, there’s the fact that books with queer themes that don’t have anything sexual in them at all are also getting banned. Not to mention books about race. None of this is actually about protecting children.