Librarians 1, Sarah Huckabee Sanders 0.
The gay-hating governor of Arkansas just had a draconian law she signed earlier this year smacked down by a federal judge.
Sanders signed Arkansas Act 372 back in March. It threatens up to a year in prison for any librarian or bookseller caught supplying kids with “harmful” (read: LGBTQ+) books and was set to go into effect on August 1.
That is until Saturday, when U.S. district judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction stopping it in its tracks.
Earlier this summer, a group of librarians, booksellers, and other book nerds challenged the law, accusing it of violating the state’s 1st and 14th amendments and saying libraries and bookstores would be forced to stop carrying certain titles for fear of prosecution.
In his opinion, Brooks sided with them, saying the new legislation was too broad since a “minor” is basically anyone under the age of 18, so the only way for libraries and bookstores to comply would be to keep all 0 to 17 year olds away from any potentially offensive books.
“This would likely impose an unnecessary and unjustified burden on any older minor’s ability to access free library books appropriate to his or her age and reading level,” he wrote.
Brooks added that the law could impact parents as well who, “browsing the shelves of bookstores and libraries with their minor children would be prohibited from accessing most reading material appropriate for an adult—because the children cannot be near the same material for fear of accessing it.”
He surmised that the “breadth of this legislation and its restrictions on constitutionally protected speech are therefore unjustified” before calling the law “very poorly drafted.”
“Perhaps any vagueness may be chalked up to the General Assembly’s haste to enact Act 372, but the lack of clarity seems to have been by design,” he wrote in the 49-page ruling. “After all, by keeping the pivotal terms vague, local governing bodies have greater flexibility to assess a given challenge however they please rather than how the Constitution dictates.”
In response, the ACLU of Arkansas, which has been representing some of the plaintiffs, issued a statement celebrating the ruling.
“The question we had to ask was – do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials?” Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said. “Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties.”
Meanwhile, Arkansas’s attorney general, Tim Griffin, a Republican, vowed that his office will “continue to vigorously defend the law.”
As for Sanders, she hasn’t commented on her recent court loss.
Throughout all this, Arkansas has remained the fourth poorest state in the nation, with a mounting affordable housing crisis and massive food insecurity. And a recent Scholaroo survey found the state ranks 49th in the nation for quality of life and 50th in the nation for quality of health.
abfab
”Harmful”? Sarah, someone did some harmful stuff to you along the way, darling. Spill it and we may forgive you.
Godabed
people voted for this dumb b*tch into office. She was terrible at her job in the Whitehouse, now she’s destroying a terrible state.
abfab
I used to enjoy P. Allen Smith. I think his super Gay homestead was in ARK. Plus the Clintons. I loved it when they called Hillary a carpetbagger. Who is NOT a carpetbagger!? The right is out of things to call people.
Ronbo
Abfab follows the establishment script – regardless of reality. Do your own homework – don’t just copy MSNBC neoliberal propaganda.
Does Abfab know that Hillary was born a conservative millionaire and raised in Illinois – not Arkansas? Did someone forget Hillary had to be forced by public opinion to more away from unconstitutional “Separate but equal” domestic partnerships into full marriage equality? Who said “We came, we saw, he died,” laughing about causing the world’s largest refugee crisis?
If we are going to pick a hero, let’s pick someone who isn’t just the mirror image of the hateful Huckabee. Let’s praise the good Democrats.
abfab
Oh shut up.
decrans
I love when Abcrabs gets his butt handed to him in the comments. The only reason I come to this neoliberal propaganda site.
DBMC
One of our trolls has been typing “neoliberal” a lot, but it doesn’t know what it means.
Kangol2
@Ronbo, you’re rewriting history again. Hillary Rodham grew up in a middle-class, suburban Illinois home. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was not a “millionaire.” He ran a small textile business but he was not in the “millionaire” class.
“The family was never comfortably affluent, and even as Mr. Rodham bought himself a Cadillac, he insisted that his wife and children live modestly.” (From “Stress Over Family Finances Propelled Hillary Clinton Into Corporate World,” Amy Chozick, New York Times, `August 10, 2016.)
I’m not sure where you spun your tale from and you love to call people “neoliberal” but you do this fantasizing and projecting a lot. If you want people to take you seriously in your criticisms, at least get your facts straight.
decrans
And here comes dumb little Davey Matthews. Yeah, I do know what it means. Corporate liberals who support the oppressive structure of capitalism and the military industrial complex. You support Pete Buttigieg, a man who earned ZERO PERCENT OF THE BLACK VOTES with policies that propped up racial gentrification in South Bend, Ind. Ergo, that word describes you to a moth–fu–ing tee, dumb little Davey boy.
Richpontone
Looking at that photo of a grimacing Sucker-bee Slanders, she looks like she did a dump in her Depends and Daddy won’t buy her a new one.
abfab
Another one with a scat fetish.
trell
I’m so disappointed that the judge didn’t declare that reading is fundamental…..
….but still, it’s good to see that there is still some common sense in the USA.
Mister P
In grade school a bunch of gay boys surrounded her and gang rejected her.
Jim
first they ban books then they burn them
Fascism not just for the 20th century
Brian
I wish we would see more lawsuits like this in other states. Where are all the gay attorneys? They should sue all the school districts that have books with heterosexual characters — after all, heterosexuality is a sexual orientation too. Any book with a straight person in it is violating the same rule as the books with gay people. Any book with pronouns (even for cisgender people) is illegal too. Lawyers should be suing so excessively that the laws get overturned. Instead, it seems that almost the entire legal profession is complacent and ambivalent.
abfab
There are lawyers in action but not nearly enough. I wish they’d get busy. VOTE BLUE!
stanley
This has never been about equal application of the law. After Utah passed its book banning law, someone requested the Bible be removed due to its sexual and violent content. The review committee agreed it fit the law’s definition of prohibited content and removed the book from school libraries. The school board then unanimously overruled the review committee and reinstated the Bible.
Invader7
She’s another failed republican loser !! There are so many ….
abfab
”failed republican loser”……….is there any other kind? x
Kangol2
Where are all the right-wing and even supposedly “liberal” “free speech” warriors when it comes to monsters like Huckabeast? They’re droning on about cancel culture and campus politics but aren’t saying anything about right-wing authoritarian attempts, including laws, forced removals of books from libraries, etc., to quash FREE SPEECH and dissenting opinions! Florida banned AP Psychology today–I mean, where is the outrage from the “free speech” warriors who bray about speech being shut down? Kids can’t learn about a powerful, theoretical and experimental science that directly addresses the human psyche and is one of the most important subjects most people could ever study even a little of?
Ronbo
No one here is supporting hateful Huckabee; once again, you conflate criticism of a horrible politician as support the for other horrible politician. Hillary triggered a right-wing political wave over Europe by triggering the largest refugee crisis in European history.
Sorry, Hillary was a huge mistake; learn from your mistakes.
dmarcus
Didn’t her generation declared books such as Romeo & Juliet, Catcher In the Rye, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, and The Great Gatbsy as work of art? They contain: murder, sex, drugs, violence, adultery, underage marriage, and queer stuff.