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AFA Law Center to Help Fayetteville Parents' Fight School Library Porn
By Jim Brown
November 23, 2005
(AgapePress) - A pro-family law firm is getting ready to sue the Fayetteville (Arkansas) School Board over pornographic books in the district's school libraries. A group of local parents is asking that children's access to several sexually explicit books in the city's elementary and middle school libraries be restricted, but the school board claims such a move would constitute censorship.
The concerned parents are being represented by the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy. AFA Law Center Chief Counsel Steve Crampton is preparing a lawsuit against the Fayetteville School Board and Superintendent Bobby New -- a legal action that seeks to get the sexually graphic books placed in a limited access area where parental consent is required.
Superintendent New and the school board recently gave the green light to Fayetteville students who wish to check out the explicit school library books. The books have been under review due to their promotion of homosexuality and depictions of teenage sex; but despite pro-family outcries, the school has not responded to the concerns and state and local officials have done little to intervene.
Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe recently stated that the legality of the school district's decision to circulate the sexually explicit materials is a matter best left "for a court or properly instructed jury" to decide. Hence, the concerned Fayetteville parents decided to seek legal help in forcing the school to protect young children from being carelessly exposed to what the plaintiffs regard as pornographic material.
Steve Crampton [pictured at right] "It seems to me imminently reasonable," Crampton says, "not to mention lawful under our system, where parents really are the overseers and the natural guardians of their children. What the school has done in this case is just buffalo the rights of parents."
Certain Fayetteville School Board members, fearing they may be seen as puritanical, are willing to violate their own consciences and vote in favor of "absurd liberal policies," the AFA Law Center attorney contends. He believes the school officials have chosen to cave in to threats from anti-censorship groups rather than address the concerns of his clients -- local mothers and fathers.
"All they're asking for is that some reasonable controls be placed on access to these explicit materials," Crampton points out. "That's the same sort of thing that we do in bookstores all over the country. Why those rules should go out the window just because you're in a public school where the law requires that our kids attend is beyond me."
It is indefensible, Crampton adds, for the Fayetteville school officials to deny the parents' request to limit children's access to the sexually explicit library books. The lawsuit the AFA Law Center is preparing on behalf of his clients will seek to compel the school board to acknowledge its obligation not only to protect children but to respond to the parents' concerns about the inappropriate materials.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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