this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
354 points (99.4% liked)

News

23409 readers
2796 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The nation’s largest publisher and several bestselling authors, including novelists John Green and Jodi Picoult, are part of a lawsuit filed Thursday challenging Iowa’s new law that bans public school libraries and classrooms from having practically any book that depicts sexual activity.

The lawsuit is the second in the past week to challenge the law, which bans books with sexual content all the way through 12th grade. An exception is allowed for religious texts.

Penguin Random House and four authors joined several teachers, a student and the Iowa State Education Association — the state’s teachers union representing 50,000 current and former public school educators — in filing the federal lawsuit.

top 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 91 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“It’s also created the paradox that under Iowa law, a 16-year-old student is old enough to consent to sex but not old enough to read about it in school,” Novack said.

I'll be interested in finding out how Iowa's lawyers try to pretzel themselves out of that one.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

1920s New York Mayor Jimmy Walker once vetoed a book ban. "No girl ever ended up in trouble [pregnant] because she was reading a book."

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What about that girl yesterday who got addicted to porn because she read a book that had kissing? Checkmate liberals.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll add the link and an explanation.

Conservative book company sent an employee to a public meeting to claim that reading had driven her insane....

https://www.houstonpress.com/news/woman-fighting-scholastic-over-reported-porn-addiction-employed-by-scholastic-competitor-16954734

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Thanks for doing the legwork I was too lazy to do myself.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Crazy how easy it is to get the slut cooties

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"He was probably a liberal!"

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He was a corrupt Tammany Hall wheeler dealer who was mired in scandal. Fun guy to read about.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That pretty much describes every New York mayor for decades though, doesn't it?

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

None of the others are fun to read about...

Except for LaGuardia,

https://youtu.be/Oq1nAQOQaSU?list=PL0E625A15E21FCA60

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 71 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think being sued by John Green must feel a lot like being sued by Mr Rogers.

[–] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Conservatives HATE John Green because he is an intelligent member of society informing teenagers on real life issues and has a history of supporting education. These are things they can't stand.

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

John Green is a Christian and was a student Chaplain at a hospital. I doubt they can do the religion dance with him either.

[–] Kyrinar@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

His brother Hank is Atheist IIRC, and people have asked them before how that affects their relationship. They basically answered "what do you mean, why would it?" So while they can try to take that angle I doubt it'd go over well.

I love the Green bros.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

To those who dont know john, hes an OG youtube guy who along with his brother Hank used to run Vidcon and who still run just buckets of charities, including building a hospital to limit child mortality in Sierra leone.

Most recently, john was so passionate about tuberculosis treatment and how pharmacies were gouging 3rd world countires for the cure, that the internet forced the big players to sell the drugs at cost, which the aid orgs that they work with confirmed. This likely saved millions of lives/yr.

This is a good, thoughtful guy who not only cares, but who actively tries to help.

[–] SketchySeaBeast@lemmy.ca 62 points 1 year ago (4 children)

An exception is allowed for religious texts.

Well, sounds like it's time to abuse the ever living shit out of that.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago

Inb4 Satanic Temple come in.

[–] zaph@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

BRB founding a religion where the sacred text is an April 1978 issue of Hustler

[–] Mango@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Right? Take their exceptionalism and put it in our hats!

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

There’s a story written by Enheduanna that’s got wonderful room to be used here

[–] charonn0@startrek.website 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“It’s also created the paradox that under Iowa law, a 16-year-old student is old enough to consent to sex but not old enough to read about it in school,” Novack said.

Zing

[–] ech@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

That's not a paradox. That's predation.

[–] mercano@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The law also bans books containing references to sexual orientation and gender identity for students through sixth grade, which the lawsuit says is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Ok, so that bans any book where the child protagonist lives with their mother and father, right? Straight is an orientation, too. Arthur, Bernstein Bears, Clifford the Big Red Dog, you’ve all got to go.

[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

^bans books with sexual content all the way through 12th grade. An exception is allowed for religious texts.

Let's go ahead and add a first ammendment challenge in there for respecting The establishment of religion in there as well.

And since it's all books I guess you'll need to rewrite your biology curriculum to remove anything related to sex as well.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So, the taxpayer has to pay for the law makers to come up with a silly law, and then pay the court costs when it gets challenged. Meanwhile, the people suing have less time and money to work the coming election. Win/win for the fascists.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

“Look at where democracy gets you”- the cry of the fascist who abused systems built on an assumption of good faith