MS Free Press: “Mississippi could ban digital books that state law defines as “sexually oriented,” including books with depictions of “homosexuality” and “lesbianism,” from public and school libraries after a majority in the Mississippi House approved an amended version of Senate Bill No. 2346 on Wednesday.
When the Mississippi Senate passed the bill on Feb. 28, it was six pages long and focused on requiring websites where pornography makes up more than one-third of the content to implement an age-verification system. When the legislation reached the House, its Judiciary B Committee amended it, expanding it to also include bans on “obscene” and “sexually oriented” digital materials in libraries. It does not include physical books.
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Yates pointed him to Section 8 of the bill, noting that it prohibits “sexually oriented” materials from public libraries and, unlike Section 7, which focused on K-12 schools, includes “no age limitation.”
“So it’s not limited just to minors,” she continued. “It specifically says that any books that depict or deal with matters of sex or materials that are sexually oriented, and these are digital books, so something for your Kindle would be prohibited. So we would be banning any book that references sex for an adult in all public libraries in any digital format.”
Bain stammered. “I think it also makes reference—but be that as it may, the intent is for it to be against minors.” He noted that the bill will go to conference, where House and Senate lawmakers can hammer out the details. “We can look at that going forward, (but) the intent is for it to be for minors, but I think there’s language in there somewhere, I don’t see it—”
“It’s not in there,” Yates said.”