Sexually explicit books still at public libraries
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – The grass roots organization that is fighting to get sexually explicit books placed into a restricted area at public libraries believes an interpretation of a new state law by Library Director Kelly LaRocca is completely wrong and has appealed to the District Attorney’s Office with a letter challenging LaRocca’s decision to still allow the books to remain on the shelves of St. Tammany libraries.
Act 436 was passed by the Louisiana Legislature this past spring and provided a new mandate for public libraries: “It is the intent of the Legislature to require libraries to adopt and implement policy language to limit the access of minors to sexually explicit materials.”
LaRocca believes the new state law only applies to materials that are “checked out.”
A Jan. 1, 2024 deadline for local policies to be created was put into the law for all state libraries, but many people were shocked at a recent Parish Council meeting when LaRocca sent a letter that was read aloud in which she bragged about how well her staff was adhering to the new law, well ahead of the deadline.
“The good news is that STPL (St. Tammany Public Library) is already in compliance with much of what the Act requires,” LaRocca said in her letter, all while dozens of books in the public libraries remain accessible to minors, containing all manner of sexually explicit information, stories and descriptive sex acts.
It was later learned that LaRocca had sought a legal opinion from Louisiana Attorney General to explain what the word “access” meant and was told “access is meant as the ability to check out.”
That left the 200 challenged books heading back to the shelves where children of all ages can access them, since LaRocca believes she has the right to still leave the books where anyone can read them. The books and other materials include various sexual acts, sex techniques, pedophilia, graphic sex act stories and more. One book recently approved by LaRocca’s committee, and then supported by the Library Board, is about a teenage girl having graphic sex with a beast. There are also dozens of books that educate, support and encourage the gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyles—topics parents believe should be reserved for adults discussing with kids—not children finding the books and reading them alone.
Roland Gallatin, president of the St. Tammany Library Accountability Project (STLAP) and a former lawyer before recently retiring, believes the interpretation of the word “access” is incorrect, and said the new state law actually makes the previous state law stronger when describing what is “harmful to minors.”
“The significance of this misguided interpretation of the law means that the Legislature only meant to prohibit minors from taking sexually explicit material home with them, but to allow those minors to access and look at/review the material on library premises. This cannot be the case,” Gallatin wrote in a letter to the District Attorney’s Office.
He likened the new law to the longstanding law about pornographic hard copy magazines at gas stations where minors were not only limited from purchasing the material, but also prohibited from looking at the material.
“The Legislature’s intent was clear and common-sense based,” he added. “The intent was to limit the access of minors to look at/review sexually explicit materials. Access means the ability and opportunity to review.”
Assistant 22nd Court District Attorney Collin Sims said their office merely referred to the opinion from the Louisiana A.G. as to the answer regarding “access.”
The book controversy started in June of 2022 and has since led to over 200 titles being challenged, all seeking a restricted section from minors, needing parental approval to see, just as is currently the case for R-rated movies. The STLAP is not seeking any book bans.
However, since that time, LaRocca and a seemingly far-left liberal Library Board has refused to limit access to anything other than graphic novels that have actual pictures of sex acts. Their decisions have followed the American Library Association’s (ALA) publicly stated views of using libraries to “change society.”
Since the books began to be challenged, the Library Board has reviewed one at a time to decide whether to put them behind the counter in a restricted section or return them to the shelves. To date, they have reviewed 19 and returned all to the library shelves, deciding none of them met the standard of “harmful to children.”
The St. Tammany Parish Council and Parish President Mike Cooper are the ones who appointed Library Board members, yet neither Cooper nor the board has stepped forward to lead a solution to the standoff, claiming they cannot force appointed board members how to act. Concerned Citizens of St. Tammany (CCST) and the STLAP announced months ago their intent to try and get Parish Council members replaced in the soon-to-come Oct. 14 elections, hoping a new group will find a way to halt the decisions by the Library Board to put the materials back on the shelves.
Gallatin said that Act 436 “changed the standard regarding what the Legislation considers sexually explicit and harmful to minors.”
Previous state law, La. R.S. 14:91.11, stated that three levels of criteria must be met for materials to be considered harmful to minors. They are:
–Material incites or appeals to or is designed to incite or appeal to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors.
–Material is offensive to the average adult applying contemporary community standards with respect to what is suitable for minors.
–Material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.
Gallatin said he believes Act 436 changed the law from “all criteria” to “any criteria,” meaning if any of the following information is contained in a book it makes the book sexually explicit, restricted, and thus, “harmful to minors.”
That information would include:
–Masturbation or lewd exhibition, actual, simulated or animated, of the genitals, pubic hair, anus, vulva or female breast nipples.
–Actual, simulated, or animated touching, caressing, or fondling of, or other similar physical contact with the pubic area.
–Actual, simulated, or animated ultimate sexual acts, whether between human beings.
He said that in the St. Tammany public libraries there are “numerous examples of books that violate the new law.”
He noted a couple of them as the book “Gender Queen,” which contains an animated version of a boy performing oral sex on another boy. “Sex is a Funny Word” contains an animated female child masturbating.
He is asking for all previously reviewed books that have been returned to the shelves to be re-reviewed according to the new law, which LaRocca currently believes are all fine to be available at the libraries for minors of any age.
LaRocca has touted a new library card system that does have requirements for checking out books without parental approval, however, the issue of the books being available on the public library shelves remains the point of contention from parents who don’t want their kids walking around the aisles and pulling them off the shelves—something that is currently completely available in St. Tammany public libraries.
One final avenue for residents to seek in the matter is for a parent to enter a library with a child, find one of the books, and then ask local police or the Sheriff’s Office to press charges against the library for allowing pornography or sexually explicit materials to be accessed.