South Dakota Republicans: Let’s Start Jailing Librarians

Legal Issues

from the book-burning-alternative-that-treats-librarians-like-witches dept

This stupid state. These stupid legislators. This goddamn constituency.

This is my current home state. And it is painful to be here.

Kristi Noem is now the head of the DHS, presumably because she never asked what this country could do for her, but instead asked “what can I do for Donald Trump?” She kept asking this question even though no one was really expecting an answer during the Biden administration. Then she allowed her constituents to be ravaged by floods because she’s already spent too much money sending South Dakota National Guard troops to Texas to “defend the border.”

The state legislature contains a vast Republican majority, as it has for years. But rather than limiting themselves to turning South Dakota into the world’s foremost inland offshore banking site, they’re now just following their (Dear) leaders. Performative cruelty is the name of the game. And the latest move is to criminalize the act of being a librarian, as Joshua Haiar reports for the last truly independent source of local journalism, South Dakota Searchlight.

In a move that one lawmaker said would lead to “locking up librarians,” South Dakota legislators advanced a bill 38-32 on Thursday at the Capitol in Pierre that would remove legal protections for libraries and other institutions if children view books that meet the legal definition of “harmful to minors.”

The bill would repeal an exemption shielding libraries, schools, universities, museums and their employees from prosecution under laws regulating obscenity and dissemination of material harmful to children. Without the exemption, people who work for those entities could be subjected to prosecutions resulting in a year of jail time and a $2,000 fine.

Librarians have normally been given a pass here because no librarian actively stocks what most people would consider to be pornographic material. But now there are plenty of politicians and special interest groups pretending content that has been carried by libraries for years is now “obscene” simply because they don’t like the content. These efforts almost exclusively target LGBTQ+ content, with legislators pretending any depiction of alternative sexuality is de facto porn.

Rep. Bethany Soye is one of those people. She’s a Republican representing the state’s largest city, Sioux Falls. She was also instrumental in the passing of an age-verification bill that would subject any website to legal action and fines if even a single pornographic image is hosted by it.

Other Republicans are more logical than Rep. Soye. While Soye claims this just prevents librarians from lending porn to kids (something that never happens), Republic lawmaker Drew Petersen says the wording of bill allows prosecutors to target librarians for doing nothing more than being helpful librarians. And another Republican lawmaker stated this law does nothing at all to make South Dakota great again.

“If a librarian accidentally allowed a student to take an anatomy book home or an encyclopedia with a picture of a naked human being, they could potentially be charged with a year in jail,” Peterson said. “That’s why I am voting no.”

Rep. Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre, also opposed the measure.

“We’re locking up librarians,” Mortenson said. “Folks, we’re not growing the state. We’re not helping our people. We’re locking up librarians in this bill.”

Soye, of course, had her own take on the issue, one that’s just as incoherent as you’d expect from someone who thinks it’s a good idea to criminalize an entire internet just because some kid might stumble across some porn somewhere.

In her closing arguments, Soye rejected claims that the bill criminalizes librarians.

“Just because there’s a penalty for something, does that mean you’re criminalizing someone?” she asked.

HOLY FUCK, SOYE! THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THAT MEANS! When you create a criminal penalty for an act that previously had no criminal penalty, you are — BY FUCKING DEFINITION — criminalizing that act. Calling this response idiotic is an insult to idiots everywhere. This is, by far, one of the worst defenses of anything ever — so terrible I’m on the verge of going full Godwin on it. This is incredibly dumb shit being said by someone who’s so far up their own bigotry they can’t even recognize their own blatant contradictions.

It’s not a law yet. Unfortunately, it’s headed to the state senate, which is just as heavily stocked with Republicans and just as willing to violate constitutional rights so long as it makes the frothiest of their fellow lawmakers and constituents momentarily happy.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, bethany soye, book ban, censorship, free speech, libraries, republicans, south dakota