Kentucky State Representative Josh Calloway has introduced HB191, which is aimed at preventing and removing "material harmful to children in schools." It would ban books from school libraries that visually depict sexual acts or obscene nudity. This would result in books being banned from school libraries in Kentucky that JCPSExposed has alerted parents to in the past.
The bill provides for both school principals and the local Board of Education to determine that a book is "material harmful to children in schools." In that bill, “the school principal shall determine whether the material, program, or event that is the subject of the complaint is harmful to minors,” upon a written complaint from a parent of a student to that school principal.
The legislation states that a local Board of Education "shall immediately determine the material, program, or event to be 'harmful to minors' and require its removal if the board denies a parent or guardian the opportunity to orally recite passages from material, a program, or an event." The notion here has been that if it is sexually inappropriate to read in the presence of adults (in the Board of Education meetings), then it is sexually inappropriate to offer to children in a student library.
HB191 states that books shall be banned that “taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex” or are “patently offensive to prevailing standards regarding what is suitable for minors.” Although not directly singled out, HB191 would end up making the Song of Solomon book in the Bible banned from the K-12 government schools. This could end up being a problem for religious messaging in other portions of the Old Testament unless you can publish and spread a version of the Old Testament for children without it or unless you are using online tools only that do not provide access to the Song of Solomon.
The Family Foundation is in support of HB191, since it would offer legal recourse for removing erotic literature from government school libraries. Dr. Frank G. Simon, who leads Kentuckians for Freedom and the Kentucky Family Association, is in agreement with the Family Foundation on that point and believes that the price to pay (not having the Song of Solomon in government schools) is worth the result of removing the erotic literature from the schools.