The debate over children’s books promoting sexuality sparked a South Carolina county council meeting over whether the local library board should restrict access to questionable material in the children’s section of the public libraries.
On Nov. 1, the Greenville County Council voted 9–3 against a resolution that would have supported the Greenville County Library System’s ability to remove books that have sexual content from the children’s section of the library system.
The resolution was largely symbolic and would not have affected the library board’s policies.
The consensus of those who voted against the resolution was that the resolution would be overreaching into another government board’s purview.
Councilman Joe Dill, who presented the resolution at the request of the local Greenville County Republican Party, told The Epoch Times that it’s not a directive but a show of support for the library board’s endeavor to remove sexualized material from the children’s section.
However, some of those who spoke during public comment against the resolution called it “book banning.”
Since books that depict illustrations of characters engaging in sexual activity—such as “Gender Queer”—started appearing in children’s libraries in 2020, parents started speaking out in school board meetings despite other parents and many school board members saying the problem was nonexistent.
“We’re not even discussing banning books,” Dill said. “We’re discussing putting the books in an age-appropriate area.”
One woman who spoke during public comment said there was already a policy in place in the library system that regulated age-appropriate books and prevented them from being checked out without a parent’s permission.
“The truth is that this resolution isn’t about protecting children—it’s about power,” the woman said. “It’s about parents who feel they should have the power to dictate what books other people’s children have access to, and it’s about using the power of performative outrage to punish LGBTQ youth.”
As a member of the LGBT community, she said she wasn’t indoctrinated through a book.
“No book has the ability to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” she said. “What books do have is the power to teach empathy and acceptance, and to provide a mirror with which to see ourselves reflected back into the world.”
She went on to state that books about sexuality are a lifeline for children who are confused about their sexuality and at risk of suicide.
The Risk of Suicide
The argument that children commit suicide because of sexual repression has mostly fallen under the transgender debate and has been refuted by psychologists such as Miriam Grossman.“Kids who are confused about their gender often have other issues, and if you compare the suicide rates of kids who have psychiatric issues without gender identity problems with kids who say they are trans, or nonbinary, what you have are very similar suicide rates,” Grossman told The Epoch Times in a previous interview. “So, it’s very inaccurate for these parents to be told their child is at risk of suicide because of this one issue when there are many other issues.”
The public comment period was colored with biblical allusions and a reference to Ted Bundy’s admitted addiction to pornography as a source of his murder sprees.
Sid Cates, vice chair of the board of trustees for the Greenville County Library System, said during public comment that the library committee met earlier that day and examined 24 children’s books and had come to a recommendation that falls in line with the council’s resolution, though he didn’t specify further.
A Question of Timing
Later in the council’s discussion around the resolution, Councilman Dan Tripp asked Dill—who lost his primary in June—if he had told voters that he was “going to go out in a blaze of glory,” implying that his presenting the resolution was a political stunt, which Dill denied.Tripp said it’s the parents’ responsibility to enforce what books are checked out, though he said he agreed with the intent of the resolution.
“I’m just questioning the timing and the rationale of doing this while all it’s doing is dividing the community,” he said.
Though Councilman Ennis Fant said he agrees that sexually explicit material should not be found in the children’s library, he said the book in question that was presented to the council the week prior was not a book that was found in the children’s library.
“It was kind of wrong to lead us to believe that it’s in the children’s section when it wasn’t,” Fant said.
Frant did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for a comment.
