Florida school district must restore books with LGBTQ+ content under settlement

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Yahoo! News/AP

Thu, September 12, 2024 at 5:55 PM EDT


FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A school district in northeast Florida must put back in libraries three dozen books as part of a settlement reached Thursday with students and parents who sued over what they said was an unlawful decision to limit access to dozens of titles containing LGBTQ+ content.

Under the agreement the School Board of Nassau County must restore access to three dozen titles including “And Tango Makes Three,” a children's picture book based on a true story about two male penguins that raised a chick together at New York's Central Park Zoo. Authors Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the district, which is about 35 miles (about 60 kilometers) northeast of Jacksonville along the Georgia border.

The suit was one of several challenges to book bans since state lawmakers last year passed, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, legislation making it easier to challenge educational materials that opponents consider pornographic and obscene. Last month six major publishers and several well-known authors filed a federal lawsuit in Orlando arguing that some provisions of the law violate the First Amendment rights of publishers, authors and students.

“Fighting unconstitutional legislation in Florida and across the country is an urgent priority,” Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster and Sourcebooks said in a statement. Among the books removed in Nassau County were titles by Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jodi Picoult and Alice Sebold.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-school-district-must-restore-215510354.html

[SupportSanity]

1. They took away... Now they have to put back.

[keithbvadu2]

2. Why are right wingers and the religious right so dead set against gays, trans, and others? --- Misdirection.

Republican Sexual Predators, Abusers, and Enablers Pt. 53

https://www.dailykos.com/blogs/CajsaLilliehook

[Blue for the win]

3. Throw them out

The books should be replaced and the school board members should be thrown out.

[poozwah]

4. cancel

i have heard much about cancel culture from friends and relatives who are maga supporters. the truth is that it is the maga types who are attempting to cancel many aspects of our national culture. we pride ourselves on being a free and open society. one of the most integral parts of our society is the right to access and read whatever the hell we want. i would much prefer that our children read these supposedly bad books than not to read them because these books are the keys to an open mind. nobody, and i mean nobody, has the right to close any mind. they have hijacked the flag. they have hijacked family values. they have hijacked reality. we must not allow them to hijack our minds by banning books.

[Martin68]

5. Yes!

[Bayard]

6. Penguins are so obscene in those little black tuxes

Glad to see this put back right.

[Dan]

7. I wish the School Board Members that make those insane decisions based on their personal beliefs

when the School Board loses the case, the members must pay the legal expenses,