Mr. Rynerson has attempted to refute my claim that Huntington Beach is standing up for parental rights. Allow me to reply.
In pointing out that the first amendment makes no distinction between adults and children, he implies children have a right to access books impacting their moral and religious upbringing independent of their parents. This is not correct. The Supreme Court has long recognized the rights of parents to direct their children’s moral and religious development, most recently in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
Shifting gears, he then claims that “no one on either side of the debate ever suggested that minors should have unrestricted access to all library holdings.”
Well, yes, they have. The American Library Association’s (ALA) “Library Bill of Rights” states that “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age …” and that “All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use.”
California’s Freedom to Read Act, AB 1825 (2023-2024) uses similar language, and Judge Lindsey Martinez recently cited this law in ruling that Huntington Beach could not require parental involvement in children’s access to sexual books. She said parents’ rights were not infringed, because if they didn’t like it, they could just not use the library. Of course, they still must pay for the library as taxpayers.
Measure A itself required books of all “views” and “topics” to be provided for “all people,” mirroring the Library Bill of Rights language.
So, there are plenty of people on one side of this debate demanding that minors should have “unrestricted access to all library holdings.” That is what this whole fight is about.
Is it true that deciding “what books remain in the library system or preventing them from ever entering the holdings effectively constitutes banning”? If that is true, then all libraries engage in banning, since every library has someone, whether library employees, an elected library board or an appointed citizens committee that selects which books out of the millions available they will have in their collection.
Why should librarians who have no connection to the voters and taxpayers who pay for the books have sole discretion in how the taxpayers’ money is spent? Admittedly, trained librarians know the Dewey Decimal system better than the average citizen, but does that mean they reflect the community’s moral values? A citizens’ board appointed by an elected council has a much better right to make that claim.
We are told that “if a parent objects to a book, they simply don’t let their child access it.” Sexually themed books with graphic covers are often put on prominent display. Are parents supposed to hover over their children, ready to cover their young eyes when they come upon such displays? Are they supposed to keep their teenagers from going to the library unescorted? Should they regard the public library as a dangerous place for their children?
No. The City Council has a responsibility to keep the library a safe place for all, not a place parents need to worry about.
If it was “not malicious compliance” for librarians to make a show of moving innocent sounding books in response to Council policy, why did they invite Inside Edition to come and video them dramatically moving the “innocent books,” weeping as they went? Do news crews roam libraries looking for stories uninvited?
We are told there is no “huge nefarious plot by the state to drive a wedge between parents and children,” a plot he refutes by simply saying “Poppycock!”
The huge nefarious plot to drive a wedge between parents and children is at the center of our well-known “culture wars,” with Biden’s FBI labeling parents who objected to these kind of books at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists,” and with the many battles between Sacramento and local school boards in Temecula, Placentia-Yorba Linda, Chino, and our own OC Board of Education being well-known instances.
Teachers Unions and the ALA fight these battles against parents constantly. This is all very public and cannot be dismissed by just saying “Poppycock, it’s not happening.”
Mr. Rynerson personally helps drive the wedge by suggesting I as a parent have no right to direct the moral and religious development of my own child in the first place, and that if I am concerned about other people trying to do that for me, that I am the problem.
Finally, he expresses the concern that the limited efforts to uphold parental rights on the part of Huntington Beach, a red dot in a blue sea, risks the emergence of a “one-party rule” when we are living under one party rule in the state of California.
I urge Huntington Beach to continue the fight for parental rights up to the US Supreme Court where our alignment with their Mahmoud v Taylor ruling should result in our vindication.
Russ Neal is a 21-year resident of Huntington Beach, former Naval officer and retired engineer. He is active in several Republican and conservative organizations.
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