{"id":1917112,"date":"2023-04-20T09:26:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T13:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tennessee-bill-targets-publishers-for-sending-sexually-explicit-books-to-schools\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T09:35:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T13:35:04","slug":"tennessee-bill-targets-publishers-for-sending-sexually-explicit-books-to-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tennessee-bill-targets-publishers-for-sending-sexually-explicit-books-to-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Bill Targets Publishers for Sending Sexually Explicit Books to Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftennessee-bill-targets-publishers-for-sending-sexually-explicit-books-to-schools%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1917112&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0420\/c0569d58-787d-431e-a0b0-87016436552d\/audio.mp3?length=4039245&#038;duration=337\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Tennessee House of Representatives approved a bill on April 19 that could make\u00a0book publishers, distributors, or sellers liable for knowingly sending \u201cobscene materials\u201d to public schools in the state.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wapp.capitol.tn.gov\/apps\/BillInfo\/Default.aspx?BillNumber=SB1059\">Senate Bill 1059,<\/a> sponsored by Republican state Rep. Susan Lynn and Republican state Sen. Joey Hensley, passed the House in a\u00a071\u201322 vote, roughly a week after it passed in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>It now heads to Republican Gov. Bill Lee\u2019s desk to be signed into law.<\/p>\n<p>Under the bill, the \u201ceducational justification of a person possessing obscene material\u201d is removed if the individual \u201cis at a school building, bus, school campus, grounds, recreational area, athletic field, or other property owned, used, or operated by a local education agency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bill would also make it a\u00a0Class E felony for any book publisher, distributor, or seller to knowingly sell or distribute \u201cobscene matter\u201d or materials to a public school in Tennessee serving any of the grades in K\u201312.<\/p>\n<p>State law defines obscene materials as those that the average person \u201capplying contemporary community standards\u201d would find \u201cappeals to the prurient interest\u201d or \u201d depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct,\u201d and \u201ctaken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Publishers,\u00a0distributors, or sellers found guilty of violating the law risk receiving a six-year prison sentence and a\u00a0fine of up to $3,000, in line with a Class E felony, although the law notes this could be even higher\u2014up to $100,000 per violation.<\/p>\n<p>If signed by the governor, the bill would go into effect in July.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018You Can\u2019t Give Sexually Explicit Books to Minors\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Lynn\u00a0told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennessean.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2023\/04\/18\/tennessee-schools-publishers-to-face-prosecution-over-explicit-books\/70123980007\/\">The Tennessean<\/a> that the bill is intended to further bolster other laws the state has in place, such as the Age Appropriate Materials Act (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.tn.gov\/Bills\/112\/Bill\/SB2407.pdf\">pdf<\/a>), to help keep\u00a0inappropriate materials out of children\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n<p>That act requires each public school and public charter school to maintain a list of materials in the library collection, and periodically review and evaluate library books to ensure they are\u00a0appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is only for books being sent to the school,\u201d Lynn said. \u201cCertainly, if there are any sexually explicit books in teacher\u2019s classrooms or in school libraries, they need to come out. You can\u2019t give sexually explicit books to minors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Explaining further how the law would work, Lynn said that any books with \u201csexually explicit sentences\u201d would be deemed to contain\u00a0obscene matter and would need to be removed from schools, leaving the book publishers, distributors, or sellers liable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re sorry it\u2019s the entire book, but they chose to put sexually explicit content in the book,\u201d Lynn added.<\/p>\n<p>While the bill passed in a vote on April 19,\u00a0not everyone welcomed the legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Democrat state Rep.\u00a0Justin Jones told fellow lawmakers during floor discussions regarding the bill that they should be focused instead on banning assault rifles in the state as opposed to books.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that there are children that are watching this body an<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Tennessee House of Representatives approved a bill on April 19 that could make\u00a0book publishers, distributors, or sellers liable for knowingly sending \u201cobscene materials\u201d to public schools in the state. Senate Bill 1059, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Susan Lynn and Republican state Sen. Joey Hensley, passed the House in a\u00a071\u201322 vote, roughly a week after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":1917113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[8755,8899,14768,3735,5193,11076,4841,6651],"class_list":["post-1917112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-books","tag-explicit","tag-publishers","tag-schools","tag-sending","tag-sexually","tag-targets","tag-tennessee"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}