And most of the controversy involves school libraries - although there are some exceptions.
This bill just doesn’t do much. I’m not opposed to it. I guess it might do a little good.
But it’s posturing by politicians.
This is splitting hairs: removing books from school libraries is a de facto ban on those books. Neither the article nor law implies that "book ban" in this context means anything other than "school book ban."
No, it isn't. There are millions of books that aren't in school libraries. Are they all de facto banned?
Confidently declaring something doesn't make it true. A library deciding not to carry a book is not a book ban.
This is not a "gotcha" or loophole of some type. Words have meanings[1]. If your argument relies on changing the meaning of a common word in the dictionary, it's your argument that is wrong, not the damn dictionary!
I mean, where are you going with this?
Are you seriously advocating that school libraries and librarians have free reign to determine which books to hold? Because that's how you get Intelligent Design introduced into schools. It's how you perpetuate stereotypes and bigotry.[2].
We don't want individuals exclusively responsible for determining what ideas may or may not be available to people. By having the ruling authority perform the determination, it becomes a collective determination by the taxpayers.
If the taxpayers are unhappy, they express their unhappiness with their vote.
I want to know, after reading your many emotionally charged arguments for why this must be called a "ban", exactly why you feel that the decision on literature suitability be made by selected individuals, and not by a voted-in government.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ban
[2] I've been atheist for decades, and I argued multiple times against allowing individuals within schools to determine what goes into the minds of children, because I've seen multiple times that the only end-result of allowing this is that the more passionate (engaged? Ideologues? Insane?) people tend to move into those positions that allow them to propagate their ideology.
Restrictions come in many forms. It used to be marriage is special, then WC symbols are sacred, now we're back to think-of-the-children and their precious little minds. And one particular form is that some books are now banned from school libraries.
I wholeheartedly support the demand for more correct wording, but unfortunately it doesn't really matter.