The “Right” to Read

 

By Gretchen Garrity

One of the arguments the American Library Association (ALA) and its proponents use to push vulgar, sexually explicit and age-inappropriate books and materials in public libraries is their concocted “Right to Read.” It’s a twisted interpretation of the First Amendment, which allows the ALA to suggest that minor children have a First Amendment right to read anything, regardless of content.

The first thing to note is that this interpretation strips parents’ rights away. Parents have not only the duty, but the right to protect their minor children from books that seek to politically indoctrinate or sexualize them in ways that are contrary to their values and are harmful to the normal development of children. There are many studies that show the harm sexually explicit materials can have on young minds. It’s common sense to protect children emotionally as well as physically, and most parents and citizens have a natural understanding of this concept.

Minor children also have limited rights, and are properly governed by their parents until they reach the age of majority. Most parents believe that children should not be exposed to books and materials that sexualize and/or indoctrinate them in far left agendas.

Freedom of Speech is not Freedom to Read, which is why the ALA is working furiously to codify the Freedom to Read in law. Here is the gist of what the ALA believes about the “freedom” to read. There is enough poop in the statement to make it wholly unacceptable.

The Library Bill of Rights

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services. [Note: they use the word ‘policies’ because none of the following is law]

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views. [Bolding added]

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. [Bolding added] Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.

Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; January 29, 2019.

Inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996. [Bolding added]

USURPATION

Note the ALA is mimicing language from our Constitution. “Library Bill of Rights” is stolen from the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. This is the purposeful usurpation of language and the twisting of it to mean something else. Here is the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Where in the First Amendment does it say that children or even adults have the right to read? If that was so, then every parent whose child graduates from a public high school as a functional illiterate should be able to sue the government schools. The ALA is making up “rights” out of whole cloth in order to carry out a far left agenda.

One of the goals and objectives of the agenda is to control the hearts and minds of your children; hence the ALA’s desperate bid to codify a right to read without regard to age. Every three-year-old to which they can normalize transgender ideology, every ten-year-old that can be sexualized, every fourteen-year-old radicalized to support their agenda is another soldier in their war against our culture.

The ALA’s June 2024 annual meeting resulted in a statement that once again “strongly reaffirms freedom for all to read freely.” It claims our republic is a democracy. It condemns efforts to identify and/or relocate books and decries “efforts to prevent minors from accessing developmentally relevant library materials.”

That seems to be code for books with sexual themes and far left agendas.

The highfalutin’ and elitist language is embarrassing at this point. We all know what they’re up to.

School board member reveals @NJEA uses Marxist fist as its symbol for “RISE; Radical Imagination Summit for Education.”

This is teachers “radical” training for kids from a teachers union. This is Marxism right in our faces.#parenting #moms #dads #edchat @BillSpadea @wakeupnj https://t.co/3wNTURsSoo pic.twitter.com/AagVykIb8G

— Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries® (@SexHarassed) July 1, 2024