[Active-l] (ACTION ITEM) (OKLAHOMA) Oklahoma bill against GBLT-themed material in libraries.

[Dara (R'ykandar Korra'ti)]

	An Oklahoma house committee has passed a bill requiring all material 
with gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered "themes" to be removed 
from public areas. I don't have a bill number. If you know anyone in 
Oklahoma, please let them know this is going on.
					- Dara

-----
Oklahoma Lawmakers Want Libraries to Limit Access to Objectionable 
Material
By Allie Martin
March 16, 2006

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/afa/162006b.asp

(AgapePress) - A proposed bill in the Oklahoma Legislature would 
require public libraries that receive state funds to remove materials 
containing sexually explicit content or homosexual themes from general 
reading areas.

The proposed law easily passed a State House panel last week and now 
heads to the full House for a vote. The bill would withhold state funds 
from public libraries that do not put objectionable material in a 
special place. Steve Crampton, chief counsel with the American Family 
Association's Center for Law & Policy, says the bill is reasonable.

"All it does is remove [the material] from, basically, an accidental 
kind of discovery by children that oftentimes are pre-kindergarten in 
age," says Crampton. "There's just no excuse for allowing kids to 
access this kind of material in a public library paid for by taxpayer 
money."

And contrary to what liberal groups might try to portray, says the 
constitutional legal expert, the bill is not a form of censorship. "The 
liberal ACLU types are looking at it with that in mind," he suggests, 
"but I think they may not rush into court."

He points out that the legislation does not call for anything to be 
removed from the libraries. "Though the easy pot-shot made at it is 
that it constitutes 'censorship,' the reality is that you're not 
removing a single book," Crampton says. "All you're doing is putting 
them into a restricted access section. So I don't know that they would 
be successful in the event they did raise the challenge."

The bill's sponsor, Representative Sally Kern of Oklahoma City, says 
she is not trying to censor materials. She explains that she just wants 
to shield children from language and behaviors they are not mature 
enough to understand.