CBS News Sunday Morning: “War of Words: The Fight Over Banning Books”

From CBS News Sunday Morning:

“Catch-22,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” “The Great Gatsby,” Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” “Lord of the Flies,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” … classics, and every one of them banned in some places. Said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, “There was somebody who objected to the profanity, or the challenge to the status quo.”

On Monday, the American Library Association will announce the Most Challenged Books of 2022. Race, controversial aspects of history, vulgarity and violence may be red flags found in a number of books already challenged or banned, but sex and gender are now overwhelmingly the subject matter being attacked, with such books as Juno Dawson’s “This Book Is Gay” and Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy” targeted – ammunition for Florida’s Republican Governor Ron Desantis’ war on “woke,” which he described in a speech on March 8: “Parents, in their sending kids to school, shouldn’t have to worry about this garbage being in the schools.”

Founded in 2021 by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, both former Florida school board members, the group Moms for Liberty now claims 275 chapters in 45 states, with 115,000 members and counting.

“Never bet against a mom,” said Justice. “Nobody’s going to defend anything like a mom is going to defend their child.”

The two described themselves as “joyful warriors.” Their aim: to play hardball, with a smile. “We want people who are serving in elected office that respect the role of the parent in a child’s life,” said Justice.

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