Discussion Moms for Liberty assault on libraries
Discussion Moms for Liberty assault on libraries
Mar 26 2025, 8:48 AM
Moms for Liberty is a USA political group founded in 2021, ostensibly made of concerned parents who "support school board candidates that value parental rights and individual liberty in education." The most recent information I found says they have over 300 chapters in 48 states. The group is probably most well known for being a staunchly conservative organization against gender and sexuality in media aimed at children. Funding is known to come from high profile conservative donors, but most notably The Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025.
Currently, Moms for Liberty is spearheading a push to supposedly hold libraries accountable for the content available to children. The objectionable books were originally taken from the page Book Looks, however this page has recently taken down its reviews and left the message:
Quote:It has been quite the ride with many ups and downs since God called us to this work in 2022, but after much prayer and reflection it has become apparent that His work for us here is complete and that He has other callings for us.
We give thanks to Him for the opportunity to do this work, and we are grateful for the kind words of support from all those who found this work useful. Our charge was always to help inform parents and it would appear that mission has been largely accomplished. We pray that publishers will take up the torch and be more transparent regarding explicit content in their books so that there will be no need for a BookLooks.org in the future.
However, M4L does have their own 111 page PDF found here. In this PDF you can find the list of books that they are objecting to, their rating system, and the reasons they have rated the books as such. Let's put a pin in this. *Note, the PDF has not been updated since the mission has expanded beyond only books in schools.
What do they want from libraries? M4L holds that they are not asking for a book ban. That sexually explicit books either be moved to a different section or held "behind the counter" and require the parent to request the book specifically. To do this their goal is to insert members into library boards, or seek punishments for non compliant libraries. Read about how M4L petitioned the Alabama library board to cut funding to public libraries for having two of the listed books in the teen section. M4L is also a proponent of a House Bill 4 in Alabama that would allow parents to submit a complaint if they found material objectionable, and should the library board agree with the complaint librarians risk being held criminally accountable.
So if their goal is to keep sexually explicit content from kids, why would I object to this? Because for all of the reasons above I do not trust this group to have our kids best interests in mind. I cannot give more specific information for fear of doxxing, but if you will allow me an anecdote. I went to my local city council meeting and the *stated* and *explicit goal* of the group was to promote conservative Christian values. No dog whistle, no reading between the lines. Those were the words used. They framed it as wanting the library to represent the values and lifestyle of "our community." Conservatives are not pro-free speech. I think I'm preaching to the choir here, but I still think it warrants being emphasized.
Back to the PDF. If you skim it, especially if you look at the images, there are many examples that I could agree is content that I would not find suitable for minors. But if you dig into the details, there are things that are very concerning. In a book titled THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY
OF A PART-TIME INDIAN (Rated 2 on their rating scale) includes:
Quote:And what's more, our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much
pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain.
Quote:During one week when I was little, Dad got stopped three times for DWI: Driving
While Indian.
If I were a more generous Native American woman, I would like to assume that this is rated as "moderate hate" because it is depicting examples of racism. And I can see how parents maybe would want to know that even when it is a personal example and not, like, actually being racist. But there's also another example in the book THE HATE U GIVE (Rated 3) which says:
Quote:“I swear, I don’t understand white people...”
None of these examples offer any further context or reason for the objection beyond "inflammatory racial commentary." Both seem to be examples of minority races expressing their experiences, and not passages of racist books. And in fairness, in both books there are more excerpts provided to support the rating, which is only more of a reason these give me pause. Also difficult to find is an example of a book rated 0 (lowest rating) to compare what they consider to be unproblematic. Some other examples in the doc are of women describing sexual assault. If the ratings take into account the context of the content (talking *about* racism is different than promoting it, talking about sexual assault is different than smut) they do not make that clear.
My objection to M4L isn't the stated goal of keeping obscene material from being given to kids in theory, it's about who is deciding the material is obscene, why did they decide that, and what methods are being used to address it. As a parent to a young child, I am obviously invested in what kinds of media she has access to. I appreciate the rating systems on movies and games to help me make decisions. I am opposed to actual pornography (in general, but also...) from being allowed to be distributed to kids. But I also know when talking about restricting access to books, we need to be very careful about who gets to make those decisions. (And criminalizing librarians is absolutely off the deep end)
If you appreciate the service your local library provides, check to see if they are being targeted by M4L or a related group. Send e-mails, visit your city council meetings, express your opinions, spread the word, donate books or money. Stay active and alert.
Edited Mar 26 2025, 8:40 PM by Lemonade.
I hope this forum is okay to post this. While it isn't directly feminism/women related, there is a great deal of overlap in the topics.
Moms for Liberty is a USA political group founded in 2021, ostensibly made of concerned parents who "support school board candidates that value parental rights and individual liberty in education." The most recent information I found says they have over 300 chapters in 48 states. The group is probably most well known for being a staunchly conservative organization against gender and sexuality in media aimed at children. Funding is known to come from high profile conservative donors, but most notably The Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025.
Currently, Moms for Liberty is spearheading a push to supposedly hold libraries accountable for the content available to children. The objectionable books were originally taken from the page Book Looks, however this page has recently taken down its reviews and left the message:
Quote:It has been quite the ride with many ups and downs since God called us to this work in 2022, but after much prayer and reflection it has become apparent that His work for us here is complete and that He has other callings for us.
We give thanks to Him for the opportunity to do this work, and we are grateful for the kind words of support from all those who found this work useful. Our charge was always to help inform parents and it would appear that mission has been largely accomplished. We pray that publishers will take up the torch and be more transparent regarding explicit content in their books so that there will be no need for a BookLooks.org in the future.
However, M4L does have their own 111 page PDF found here. In this PDF you can find the list of books that they are objecting to, their rating system, and the reasons they have rated the books as such. Let's put a pin in this. *Note, the PDF has not been updated since the mission has expanded beyond only books in schools.
What do they want from libraries? M4L holds that they are not asking for a book ban. That sexually explicit books either be moved to a different section or held "behind the counter" and require the parent to request the book specifically. To do this their goal is to insert members into library boards, or seek punishments for non compliant libraries. Read about how M4L petitioned the Alabama library board to cut funding to public libraries for having two of the listed books in the teen section. M4L is also a proponent of a House Bill 4 in Alabama that would allow parents to submit a complaint if they found material objectionable, and should the library board agree with the complaint librarians risk being held criminally accountable.
So if their goal is to keep sexually explicit content from kids, why would I object to this? Because for all of the reasons above I do not trust this group to have our kids best interests in mind. I cannot give more specific information for fear of doxxing, but if you will allow me an anecdote. I went to my local city council meeting and the *stated* and *explicit goal* of the group was to promote conservative Christian values. No dog whistle, no reading between the lines. Those were the words used. They framed it as wanting the library to represent the values and lifestyle of "our community." Conservatives are not pro-free speech. I think I'm preaching to the choir here, but I still think it warrants being emphasized.
Back to the PDF. If you skim it, especially if you look at the images, there are many examples that I could agree is content that I would not find suitable for minors. But if you dig into the details, there are things that are very concerning. In a book titled THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY
OF A PART-TIME INDIAN (Rated 2 on their rating scale) includes:
Quote:And what's more, our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much
pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain.
Quote:During one week when I was little, Dad got stopped three times for DWI: Driving
While Indian.
If I were a more generous Native American woman, I would like to assume that this is rated as "moderate hate" because it is depicting examples of racism. And I can see how parents maybe would want to know that even when it is a personal example and not, like, actually being racist. But there's also another example in the book THE HATE U GIVE (Rated 3) which says:
Quote:“I swear, I don’t understand white people...”
None of these examples offer any further context or reason for the objection beyond "inflammatory racial commentary." Both seem to be examples of minority races expressing their experiences, and not passages of racist books. And in fairness, in both books there are more excerpts provided to support the rating, which is only more of a reason these give me pause. Also difficult to find is an example of a book rated 0 (lowest rating) to compare what they consider to be unproblematic. Some other examples in the doc are of women describing sexual assault. If the ratings take into account the context of the content (talking *about* racism is different than promoting it, talking about sexual assault is different than smut) they do not make that clear.
My objection to M4L isn't the stated goal of keeping obscene material from being given to kids in theory, it's about who is deciding the material is obscene, why did they decide that, and what methods are being used to address it. As a parent to a young child, I am obviously invested in what kinds of media she has access to. I appreciate the rating systems on movies and games to help me make decisions. I am opposed to actual pornography (in general, but also...) from being allowed to be distributed to kids. But I also know when talking about restricting access to books, we need to be very careful about who gets to make those decisions. (And criminalizing librarians is absolutely off the deep end)
If you appreciate the service your local library provides, check to see if they are being targeted by M4L or a related group. Send e-mails, visit your city council meetings, express your opinions, spread the word, donate books or money. Stay active and alert.
