Raskin speaks out against book bans
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and the Interfaith Alliance convened a briefing on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning entitled, “Banned Beliefs: How People of Diverse Faiths are Fighting to Protect Our Public Schools and Libraries.” The event comes as Republicans across the country are leading efforts to ban books and educational materials, disproportionately targeting those with LGBTQ characters or themes or addressing matters of race or religion.
On Thursday, the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee, under Chair Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), will hold a hearing on “Protecting Kids: Combating Graphic, Explicit Content in School Libraries.” “We need more politicians who are reading books and fewer politicians banning books,” said Raskin, who reintroduced a resolution at the end of September with U.S.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) that would recognize Banned Books Week and condemn “the escalating attacks on books and freedom of expression in the United States.” “The censorship of books, censorship of curriculum, censorship of teachers, censorship of ideas and free speech and free discourse are always an exercise of power,” Raskin said.
The congressman relayed how, in July, when U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) displayed photographs on the House floor of Hunter Biden engaged in explicit sex acts, he said to her, “Marjorie, you know, if those pictures had been in a book, you would have banned the book, but you just showed them to everybody.” Raskin has some personal experience with book bans, as he explained on Wednesday. “I did write a book for young people, students, which is about all the Supreme Court cases that affects kids in public high schools and middle schools — which is drug testing, censorship, segregation, desegregation, affirmative action,” he said.
