Want to help us fight back against bans of LGBTQIA+ and racial justice books? We anticipate the far-right group Clean Up Alabama is showing up in numbers this Thursday, February 15, at 4PM at the North Shelby Library board meeting. Our strength is in our numbers, so we need YOU to join our Save Our Libraries campaign and cheer on our anti-censorship speakers! Let us know you’re coming by clicking this link.

The Alabama GOP voted Saturday to encourage the Alabama Legislature to repeal specific exemptions of the State’s Anti-Obscenity Act, a repeal that would allow librarians to be jailed for shelving LGBTQIA+ books in Alabama public libraries.

“‘I think we definitely could see the legislature consider a bill that would take that exemption away from libraries,’ [ALGOP Chairman John] Wahl said on…Tuesday. ‘They’re abusing their status here in putting explicit sexual material in front of children in children’s sections. That’s a problem, and I think the legislature is well within its bounds to say, ‘Look, if you’re going to do obscene material, you might not should have that exemption in the law for the obscenity provisions where the law does protect children in other areas of media.’’

“[Far-right group] Clean Up Alabama has continued to conflate sexual orientation and gender identity with sexual content and just last week was involved in rewriting policies at the Prattville library to prohibit the purchase of children’s and young adult books that contain LGBTQ content.

Read Freely Alabama said the exemption in the Anti-Obscenity Act is necessary to protect libraries from being forced to remove books under threats of criminal charges.

“‘These protections are vital to ensure the freedom of all Alabamians to access information, and removing these protections puts dedicated library staff at risk of criminal prosecution, including potential jail time, for providing legitimate sources of information for sex education purposes and LGBTQ-affirming content for Alabama families,’ Read Freely said in a statement Monday.

Learn more about the efforts to save our libraries here.