The bill, HB 2789, requires libraries to adopt a so-called “Library Bill of Rights” created by the Marxist-led American Library Association. The bill prohibits library staff from removing controversial books if they want to receive state grant funding from the Illinois State Library, according to an Associated Press article.
The legislation was approved along party lines in the Democrat-dominated legislature and will be signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker who supports it, according to the AP story.
The legislation was spearheaded by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, whose state office oversees the Illinois State Library. He called passage of the bill a “triumph for our democracy” as well as a “great victory for future generations to come.”
What those “future generations” can look forward to is finding books such as “Gender Queer,” a graphic, comic book-style novel, on the library shelf. That particular book has drawn the most vocal opposition from irate parents due to its graphic language and depiction of sex acts, and attempts to read from it aloud at school board meetings have been shut down by blushing school board members.
Yet book-banning critics such as Giannoulias, who accuse their opponents of Nazi-like tactics, never seem to describe the content inside controversial books, such as "It's Perfectly Normal." John Amanchukwu Sr., a North Carolina pastor, attempted to read that book to the Asheville Board of Education but was predictably shut down.
"If you don't want to hear it in a school board meeting, why should children be able to check it out in the school system?" the pastor angrily asked in a confrontation that has since gone viral.
Back in blue-state Illinois, Jill Hayes, a resident of Dixon, Illinois, flipped through a copy of “Gender Queer” last year after finding it in the Young Adult section at the Dixon Public Library. Dixon is a town of 15,300, where controversy over banning or keeping the book tore the community apart.
“As a mother, I was appalled to find the graphic, vulgar content readily available to children of all ages in the public library,” Hayes wrote in a letter to Dixon’s mayor and to the library board of directors.
Hayes also contacted Young America’s Foundation through its tip line in an effort to alert others.
Scott Walker, the former state governor who leads Young America's Foundation, tells AFN the new Illinois law “flies in the face” of local control by city governments and ignores parental concerns, too.
“And I would dare say it's not only in small towns,” Walker says, “but I think there's a lot of parents regardless of political beliefs, ethnicity or anything else, even in Chicago and big cities, that don't want their kids going to schools where there's pornography in the books.”
After publishing a story about Hayes and the Dixon library, YAF updated its story when the city’s mayor, Liandro Arellano, Jr., expressed concern about the book and its graphic sexual images. The city manager and library board were also advised about its content, he said in a statement to YAF last year.
“In Illinois, the city does not have direct control of the library, but we do have an oversight role,” Mayor Arellano wrote. “I think parents and leaders need to work together and be vigilant in any city, and Dixon is no exception. I’m glad this was brought to our attention.”
After a heated public debate last year, “Gender Queer” was eventually returned to the Dixon Public Library. Hayes and other critics were called bigots and haters, and the book was defended as an important source for the community, including homosexual, lesbian, and transgender children.
