The representatives passed the law to open public and school libraries for allegations of hooliganism for performing or spreading pornographic materials to minors.
The MPs argued the case for about an hour, Republican said that the bill would save minors from coming in contact with pornographic material and Democrats said that the change would expose the librarian to the threat of criminal prosecution and resulted in a cool effect on books on shelves.
The House Bill was passed by 4654 85-12 votes. It now goes to the state Senate for consideration.
Brandon steel
Delegate Brandon Steel, R-Railley, said that they sponsored the bill following concerns expressed by some librarians in their community. He doubted the possibility of prosecution of librarians, but was characterized by the bill as placed libraries and museums under the same standards as other places in the society.
“This is the chilling effect that I hope is that people who want to use these domains, which should be the centers of education and centers of civil value for our society, which should be the centers of civil value for our society – I hope that it is an impact with bad intentions on those who make children to work to use those vacancies, who are not the stil.
Right now, public and school libraries have exempted the laws of West Virginia against demonstration or broadcasting minors. House Bill 4654 will only work by removing the discount.
West Virginia’s pornographic laws have a possible penalty of fines up to $ 25,000 and up to five years of imprisonment.
Several states, including Arkansas, have passed similar laws opening libraries for obscenity laws in recent years. Often, the library content under investigation is not straight-out pornography, but instead it acts like “this book is gay” and “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out”.
According to the American Library Association, the most challenged in 2021 and 2022 was the “gender queue”, a illustrated memoir that recalls the writer’s sex recognition and the discovery of sexuality. This book came out several times in the discussion of public hearing and West Virginia Bill.
Federal Pornography Laws typically follow a three-dimensional test, including whether a proper person finds out that the material is taken as a whole, severe literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
“When you go and you see and you define the print interest, as we have, that its sole purpose is sexual stimulation and sexual satisfaction – I hate some of my colleagues here, I hate me to tell here, then there are some books that you don’t like that is not going to fall into that category of crime,” Steel said.
Joy Garcia
Delegate Joy Garcia, D-Marion, said that people can have many scenes on which material is vulgar.
Garcia said, “And all this is an prosecution lawyer or someone else who wants to make a statement, political or otherwise to ruin someone’s life,” Garcia said.
Ivan Hansen
Delegate Ivan Hansen, D-Monongalia, said that exceptions exist to protect librarians from criminal prosecution on books that some of the community members are uncomfortable.
“This is a cool effect that is a real book restriction,” Hansen said.
“It clearly does not ban books, but librarians are going to make separate decisions to reduce the risk. They are going to extract books from their shelves so that they and their employees and their volunteers and their board members are not subject to criminal prosecution and paying to protect their own pockets.”
Tom fast
House judiciary president Tom Fast stopped the argument that if the argument against the removal of the discount was taken to its logical peak, it would mean that the library would have to open any material completely to the minors to distribute to the library.
“I think we can take the opposite side of those opposing this bill and we can come back and allow our children to give anything under the cover that we cannot define what is porn,” said a candidate for the circuit judge, R-Fiyet in that county.
“This means that anything can be given to our children. This is the final result of the opposing argument, and I will reject it.”