The Florida House approved a measure Wednesday that puts a definition of “materials harmful to minors” into a controversial 2023 Florida law that led to books being removed from school libraries.
The bill (HB 1119) approved in a 84-28 mostly party-line vote in the Republican-controlled chamber considers any representation of “nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement” as harmful when it appeals to any “prurient, shameful, or morbid interest” and is “patently offensive to prevailing standards.”
Rep. Kimberly Daniels of Jacksonville was the only Democrat to vote for the measure.
The identical Senate version (SB 1692) has yet to appear before a committee as the legislative session reached its mid-point on Wednesday.
Apopka Republican Rep. Doug Bankson, the bill’s sponsor, said nothing in his proposal “addresses banning classical literature or sexual orientation, gender identity, political views, religious issues, vulgarity, or bad language, violence or gore.”
The House bill revises the reasons any material used in a classroom or school library may be challenged and requires the State Board of Education to monitor district compliance.
Florida is currently challenging a federal district judge’s August ruling that said the 2023 law is “overbroad and unconstitutional.”
“While that decision is on appeal, districts … are now caught in an impossible position,” said Rep. Dianne Hart-Lowman, D-Tampa. “Why are we moving forward with a bill when we already have something in court?”
Deborah Coffey says
Moving forward while already in court because Republicans just can’t wait for Florida to become Russia. Are we Russia, yet? Almost there!
Skibum says
Follow up with one more point to add: Is he Putin yet? Almost there!
Sheila Zinkerman says
Call the disappearing books in public school libraries whatever you want—removed, weeded, pulled. Floridians who actually read books know the truth: these books have been banned.
What’s truly alarming is how few families and students have been heard while the state and school districts have spent more than three years systematically banning public school library books. Now HB 1119 pours gasoline on that fire, flatly disregarding a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit last year (now under appeal), which found that none of the challenged and banned books named in the case were “harmful to minors.”
Further, under this bill, school districts are coerced into compliance by the threat of lost funding and penalties; the same book can be declared “harmful” in a public school but perfectly acceptable in a publicly funded private school; and families who want their children to have access to books are stripped of any right to appeal once a title is banned.
This is state-sanctioned censorship—and it demands urgent public accountability now.
Sheila Zinkerman
Citizens for Truth and Justice in Education=Eyes on Censorship
Volusia County
FlaglerLive says
That’s why our headlines don’t euphemize the aim behind these bills.
t.o. Doug says
The evening news on a typical Tuesday is more explicit than any of the books in that picture- especially lately. This is just a modern iteration of book burning and they know it.
Laurel says
Correct. Hubby turned on a movie that had a small kid swearing like a sailor, and sword fighters disemboweling each other. We turned it off, but there are plenty more. It’s easy to find people throwing each other against the wall in supposed passion. Apparently, this is what viewers want to see. But novels? Nah.
Sherry says
Right out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451!!! Time to read it AGAIN!
Oh Wait. . . It’s probably been banned for being too close to the truth of our now fascist state!!!
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and “firemen” burn any that are found.[5] The novel follows in the viewpoint of Guy Montag, a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.
Fahrenheit 451 was written by Bradbury during the Second Red Scare and the McCarthy era, inspired by the book burnings in Nazi Germany and by ideological repression in the Soviet Union.[6] Bradbury said his motivations for writing the novel had changed multiple times. In a 1956 radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote the book because of his concerns about the threat of burning books in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature. In a 1994 interview, Bradbury cited political correctness as an allegory for the censorship in the book, calling it “the real enemy these days” and labeling it as “thought control and freedom of speech control”.
Gail Walton says
All of reasons to ban a book are found in the Bible. We should ban that book as well.