NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A newly filed bill would allow residents to circulate a petition if they want their public or school library to remove a book or other material they believe goes against “contemporary community standards.”
State Rep. John Ragan (R-Oak Ridge) filed the “Restricted Access by Minors to Obscene Library Materials Act ,” which he said came about after his constituents told him content they thought was obscene was still making it onto library shelves accessible to minors.
“Public libraries and school libraries did have an exception; school libraries didn’t have an exception if there was, quote unquote, literary value or scientific value,” Ragan said. “However, that has been abused, according to many of my constituents, and so this is essentially saying that if it’s obscene material, it doesn’t matter.”
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The bill defines “contemporary community standards” as material that is “obscene, patently offensive, of a prurient interest, contains sexual conduct and is harmful to minors,” to name a few of the possible reasons listed for a book to be removed from shelves.