Judge ridicules book-ban law so strict characters can't be identified as male or female
A judge’s ruling effectively ridiculed attempts to enforce a book-banning law in Iowa that he said was so strict it made using any pronouns — including his and hers — illegal.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher granted a preliminary injunction to the law Friday that bans library books that depict any sex acts and forbids teachers from discussing gender identity, NBC News reported.
The law had been signed last year by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. It was meant to take effect on New Year’s Day.
But Locher wrote that it was far too broad.
“The underlying message is that there is no redeeming value to any such book even if it is a work of history, self-help guide, award-winning novel, or other piece of serious literature,” he wrote.
“In effect, the Legislature has imposed a puritanical ‘pall of orthodoxy’ over school libraries.”
He said he’d seen no evidence that the book had caused any “significant problems.”
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And he said the law’s restrictions on gender identity were so broad that it forbade recognizing any gender or relationship — including straight ones.
“The statute is therefore content-neutral but so wildly overbroad that every school district and elementary school teacher in the State has likely been violating it since the day the school year started,” he wrote.
Characters couldn’t even be identified as male or female, “as any such discussion would, again, amount to promotion or instruction that relates to the person’s gender identity.”