Thank you for the wake-up call to remove the pornography hiding in my home. I have spent the last week purging everything the Utah Legislature deems pornographic.
Shakespeare’s plays needed to go first — Hamlet propositions Ophelia for cunnilingus in Act III, Scene 2 of his play, Benedict exclaims he will ejaculate in Beatrice’s lap in Act V, Scene 2 of “Much Ado About Nothing,” and don’t get me started on the numerous references to cross-dressing, sodomy and arousal. The Bard’s entire folio is straight smut.
I next went to our beloved picture books. I used to love the story “No David!,” but the Caldecott-winning classic features the protagonist’s bare buttocks on page 10. This display of nudity is a clear violation of 76-10-1227(1)(b)(i)(c) and Utah’s Bright Line Law.
I said goodbye to our movies. My teens received “The Office” box set for Christmas, but I tossed it in the trash because the characters discuss their sexual escapades and make innuendo-charged jokes. I used to think the comments were infrequent and mild enough to let my kids watch, but, according to state law, I am exposing them to pornography.
Satire aside, the more I read about removing books from schools, the more I am convinced that HB374 (Sensitive Materials in Schools) was a poorly-written bill that turned into a bad law. While preventing children from being exposed to inappropriate content is admirable, the broad-sweeping definitions promoted by Rep. Ken Ivory and Utah Parents United are so liberally applied that they are meaningless.
To paraphrase “The Incredibles,” if everything is porn, then nothing is. All this extra noise makes it harder for impressionable minds to accurately assess and avoid harmful content.
(Admittedly, I do not know if UPU has declared “The Incredibles” as porn. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised).
I am disappointed by UPU’s spokesperson’s remark that they are simply following the law, when the law is doing jack squat to actually help kids. If authors are truly “grooming” children by writing about what teenagers deal with in their day-to-day lives, then UPU’s obsession with books is even worse.
UPU’s Facebook group is headlined, “Protecting Our Right to Parent.” Instead, their activism results in fewer opportunities for me to parent my kids and infringes on my children’s First Amendment rights. I find it so incredibly ironic that these so-called parental advocates only know how to parent through legislation and government overreach.
Cassidy Graves, Kaysville
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