Biden-Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Iowa Law Banning Explicit Books and Gender Ideology from Elementary Schools
A federal judge appointed by Joe Biden has blocked an Iowa law prohibiting sexually explicit books and gender ideology in elementary schools.
Judge Stephen Locher claimed the law, Senate File 496, was “unreasonable” and “puritanical.”
“It requires the wholesale removal of every book containing a description or visual depiction of a ‘sex act,’ regardless of context,” Locher said, according to a report from the New York Times.
“The underlying message is that there is no redeeming value to any such book even if it is a work of history, self-help guide, award-winning novel or other piece of serious literature,” the judge continued. “In effect, the Legislature has imposed a puritanical ‘pall of orthodoxy’ over school libraries.”
The law was challenged in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by the book publisher Penguin Random House and the Iowa State Education Association.
