Georgia’s Senate passed a bill Thursday that would ban libraries from spending public or private funds on services offered by the American Library Association, which a Republican member of the chamber called a “Marxist and socialist” group.
The measure, Senate Bill 390, passed by a vote of 33 to 20. Democrats opposed it, saying the ALA offered libraries invaluable services and had long defended free speech and artistic expression.
But one of the bill’s authors, Republican Sen. Larry Walker III, said the group’s agenda and politics were inconsistent with Georgia’s conservative values.
“This is not an attack on libraries,” he said. “It doesn’t ban any books.”
In other words, supporting open access to a broad range of varied information is against their conservative values. Not that that’s news to anyone following conservative behaviors, but it must be emphasized for those that don’t.
Alongside that, undercutting a source of funds may not be banning books, but it absolutely reduces the operational capacities of libraries that were benefiting from them, in effect removing a range of books the libraries might otherwise provide.
Which is why their trying to knee-cap the internet.
Experience guides my way; anything a politician says before or after “think of the children” has nothing to do with actual childrens safety and everything to do with undermining your constitutional rights
Every single time. Without fail.