Library content bill narrowly passes North Dakota House
Rep. Bernie Satrom, R-Jamestown, speaks on the House floor on April 14, 2025. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
A bill requiring school and public libraries to relocate content deemed 'sexually explicit' passed the House on a 49-45 vote Monday after nearly 90 minutes of debate.
Senate Bill 2307, sponsored by Sen. Keith Boehm, R-Mandan, would allow people who challenge library content to seek a state's attorney's opinion if they don't agree with a local content review process.
If the content is deemed obscene by the state's attorney and not removed, state funding to the library or school could be withheld. The bill also allows a state's attorney to prosecute violations, though it's not clear who would be prosecuted.
Implementing the bill is estimated to cost $1.1 million for 2025-27, or $2 million over the next four years, to add an age verification system for the state's online library database.
Rep. Eric Murphy, R-Grand Forks, who voted against the bill, said the bill's fiscal note doesn't address the costs that will be added to county state's attorney's offices.
Committee recommends 'do not pass' on controversial North Dakota library content bill
'The cost of this was not determined and, of course, was a concern for the (Appropriations) Committee,' Murphy said.
Other critics of the bill have said there will be additional costs for local libraries to implement it.
The House Appropriations Committee issued a do-not-pass recommendation for the bill on a 22-1 vote Friday.
Rep. Bernie Satrom, R-Jamestown, who voted in favor of the bill, said the $1.1 million in costs for the age verification was a small price to pay to ensure that obscene content is kept from children.
He said he found it odd the House Judiciary Committee voted 12-1 to recommend passage of the bill while the House Appropriations Committee came to the opposite result.
Many comments from lawmakers referred to some library content as pornography.
'By passing this bill, we affirm that taxpayer dollars should never be used to purchase pornography,' said Rep. Kathy Frelich, R-Devils Lake.
One book lawmakers objected to was the 'Heartstopper' LGBTQ graphic novel series that had been challenged at the Forman school library. The bill sponsor also distributed a list of the American Library Association's top challenged books, along with a list of which North Dakota libraries carried them. Many of the books have LGBTQ themes or discuss sexual assault.
In a statement, the ACLU of North Dakota said the bill amounts to censorship and questioned who will decide what is considered obscene or sexually explicit.
'Government officials cannot impose their personal moral values on others,' Cody Schuler, ACLU of North Dakota advocacy manager, said in a statement. 'If you don't like a book, don't read it – or don't let your kids read it. It's as simple as that.'
Barring a reconsideration of Monday's House vote, the bill will be sent to Gov. Kelly Armstrong for his consideration.
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CNN
18 minutes ago
- CNN
As World Pride celebrates steps from the White House, LGBTQ pioneers call for a return to the movement's roots in protest
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Decades later – and mere steps from the White House – Washington, DC, is set to mark the 50th anniversary of Pride celebrations in the nation's capital this weekend by hosting World Pride 2025. The global celebration honors the LGBTQ community and their ongoing fight for equality in the United States and around the world. But the parades and parties that have come to define Pride will take place in the shadow of a presidential administration that has been openly hostile to the civil rights of LGBTQ Americans. From the administration's staunch anti-diversity stance and the military's push to oust transgender servicemembers, to a looming US Supreme Court ruling that could upend health care for millions of LGBTQ Americans, the second Trump administration has ushered in a period of uncertainty and fear. But pioneers in the fight for gay rights tell CNN the success of the gay rights movement in the United States is built on the shoulders of average men and women who had little power to fight back against the might of the US government, but who somehow found the courage – and the pride – to do so anyway. When Candy Holmes first met then-President Barack Obama in 2009, she wanted more than just a photo op. As a lesbian and a longtime federal employee, Holmes had been invited to the White House, she recalled, to witness the president issue a directive for federal agencies to extend benefits to same-sex couples. The move was a step toward expanding rights for LGBTQ Americans. But as Holmes shook the president's hand, she was determined not to waste the moment. 'We need more than just benefits,' she told Obama, noting his directive only applied to federal employees. 'There's a whole community that needs benefits – we need full citizenship.' The president considered her comment, she recalled, then issued a challenge. 'OK, I hear that,' she remembers him saying. 'Take this message back to the LGBTQ community – tell them to make me do it.' Holmes vowed to do just that. As Black, gay women, Holmes and her wife, Darlene Garner, said they live each day with the knowledge of all their ancestors endured – and how hard they had to fight – to secure their civil rights. Progress in this country is not linear, Garner said. So instead of being paralyzed by that knowledge, Garner encouraged others to channel it into action. 'This is not the time to be passive, or silent, or hide away,' she said. 'Change will not happen unless people demand justice for all.' The couple were among the first to get married in the nation's capital when DC legalized same-sex marriage in 2010. 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'We have to continue to apply pressure to help it bend,' Holmes said. 'There are many paths to justice,' Garner added. 'It doesn't really matter what path you're walking on, but you gotta get on the road.' Not too long ago, Cleve Jones said he was grabbing drinks with friends at a gay bar in San Francisco when the conversation turned toward a tragic part of their shared history: the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They tried to estimate the number of friends, neighbors and loved ones they'd lost – in San Francisco alone – as the virus tore through the gay community during the decade before treatment became available. 'We were talking about the horror days,' Jones said, 'and we came up with a figure of somewhere around (20,000) to 25,000 people.' They weren't far off the mark. One study estimates nearly half of the gay men in the city had been diagnosed with AIDS by 1995. At the bar that night, a younger man who was seated nearby overheard the conversation and cut in. 'He said, 'You know, I know you old folks had a rough time of it, but really, you don't need to exaggerate,'' Jones recalled. The remark left him stunned – and angry. Jones, who himself is HIV-positive and is the founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a community art project, has dedicated his life to memorializing those who died from AIDS during a pandemic that the government seemed all too eager to ignore, he said. In 1987, during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, Jones displayed the memorial quilt on the National Mall for the first time, with each panel dedicated to someone who died from the disease. In the decade before HIV treatment became widely available, the quilt returned to the mall nearly every year, forcing the country to reckon with the sheer number of lives lost to AIDS. 'I don't think the younger generation in my community really quite understands their history,' Jones said. 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Eisenhower signed an executive order that banned homosexuals from working for the federal government and the military. Those who were outed would not only lose their jobs, but their names were often published in newspapers, which could cost them their families and their livelihoods. 'It was not unusual to come home from work and find two members of Naval Intelligence on your doorstep asking you to come down to the Navy Yard for questioning,' Kuntzler recalled. His longtime partner, Stephen Brent Miller, was once interrogated for information about one of their friends, he said. The Mattachine Society was initially founded in secret in 1950 to fight for the rights of 'homophiles,' but it would go on to become one of the earliest and more consequential gay rights groups in the nation. By the time Kuntzler joined its Washington, DC, chapter in 1962, the organization was gearing up to take a more visible stand against the government's treatment of gays. 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Associated Press
20 minutes ago
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