COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio Republican lawmaker is defending his controversial bill that would charge teachers and school district librarians with felonies for "pandering" so-called "obscene" material.
Bridget Rueter’s kids love reading, which has inspired her mission to stop book bans across the state. The Cincinnati mom is a part of Red, Wine & Blue — an organization made up of suburban women in Ohio who advocate for progressive causes.
"I have the right to say what is okay for my child to read," Rueter said.
She is now worried that educators will be censored due to new legislation.
"I think my initial reaction was shock to see the words obscene and school librarian in the same sentence," Rueter said.
State Rep. Adam Mathews (R-Lebanon) introduced House Bill 556, which would create criminal liability for educators who are "pandering obscenity." This could ban certain materials from being displayed, given out or being able to rent or buy. It would also be illegal to create, direct or produce an obscene performance.
The full bill can be found here.
"Educational materials should be towards making good citizens, making good future Ohioans and having the material that is directed to prurient interests — that's not necessary," Mathews told me in an exclusive interview.
Prurient is defined as excessively sexual.
Violators are guilty of pandering obscenity — a fifth-degree felony, which could be a year in prison and up to a $2,500 fine. If the offender previously has been convicted of this violation, it is a fourth-degree — between six and 18 months in prison and up to $5,000 in fines.
What is the definition of obscenity in Ohio?
In short, it is if something is sexual, depicts “bizarre violence,” or “inspires disgust or revulsion in persons with ordinary sensibilities,” according to Section 2907.01 of the Ohio Revised Code.
"Its dominant appeal is to prurient interest," the code said.
"It contains a series of displays or descriptions of sexual activity, masturbation, sexual excitement, nudity, bestiality, extreme or bizarre violence, cruelty, or brutality, or human bodily functions of elimination, the cumulative effect of which is a dominant tendency to appeal to prurient or scatological interest, when the appeal to such an interest is primarily for its own sake or for commercial exploitation, rather than primarily for a genuine scientific, educational, sociological, moral, or artistic purpose."
Reactions
Maria Bruno with Equality Ohio said she believes this will target the LGBTQ+ community because people have different definitions of obscene. She worries that some will wrongly claim that having a queer relationship or character is inherently sexual, she added.
"We know that there has been a coordinated attempt to try to remove any mention of LGBTQ identities from schools," Bruno said.
I have been covering legislation impacting the LGBTQ+ community for years now. The lawmakers have banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors and prohibited trans middle, high school and college students from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. They have proposed bills similar to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" provision, a bill that advocates say would "force outing" and a bathroom ban.
Ohio Federation of Teachers president Melissa Cropper said this is exacerbating the frustration educators have been facing all year.
"I think this bill is again just following the lines of the culture wars that we've been experiencing and trying to indicate that things are happening, that aren't happening," she said. "We don't need a law that threatens our school librarians or our public librarians around what they're giving out the children. These people are trained to look at materials trained to determine what is appropriate for certain age groups and what's appropriate for people to read."
Mathews denied scaring teachers is his goal.
I asked him directly about the allegations that this would impact the LGBTQ+ community — by saying sexual orientation is sexuality.
"We've not seen that type of situation with the standard obscenity language," he said. "And really, a second grader doesn't need to be seeing obscene relationships no matter who the couples are."
"There has been a significant amount of schools that have banned books using "pandering obscenity" because there is mention of queer student or queer couple in it — but they aren't doing anything inherently sexual," I responded.
"We have many books... that have had types of relationships that are different than a husband and wife and they've been clearly not obscene," he said. "And as such, I believe we have this local control."
Cropper said this is decimating local control.
"People who supposedly support choice are trying to take choice away from people when they're deciding what to read," she said.
Mathews said that the courts will be able to decide what is obscene or not and that people accused will have an affirmative defense to providing so-called obscene content.
"This is very directed towards those types of obscenities that rise to the level of 'This is the purpose of the work,' rather than communicating about relationships, than communicating about history or art or how your endocrine system works," he added.
I asked Gov. Mike DeWine about the legislation, and he did not seem impressed.
"Whenever anybody's talking about passing legislation that bans books — this is dealt with usually at the local community, people can deal with this without a law," DeWine responded.
He continued that parents already have a way to tell schools if they find something objectionable.
"We believe in parental rights and parents have the right certainly to have a say about that," the governor said. "Whether you need legislation or not, I think it's burden of proof is on someone to show us why you need legislation in this area. People deal with these issues every single day. They deal with what their children read, they deal with what they don't read, they try to encourage them to read — but if there's something that they don't think is appropriate, parents have the obligation to take care of that and they do."
Possible outcomes
Bruno thinks that a likely outcome of this bill would be to scare librarians and teachers into removing anything that could be considered inappropriate to a right-wing community member.
"We've seen some already very silly examples of one unreasonable parent coming in and causing a fuss over a ridiculous interpretation," she said. "The idea that this unreasonable definition of obscenity could mean anything that they don't like — leading to a felony — is very scary."
Case Western Reserve University professor Jonathan Entin explained that there is precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court on the definition of obscenity.
The court case made it clear that you can't classify work as obscene on the basis of one passage or one scene, Entin said, citing Miller v. California.
"It is the work taken as a whole, applying contemporary community standards," Entin explained.
Something more startling for Rueter is that this bill could impact adults. Under this language, librarians in public libraries that happen to be in school districts would be prevented from having “obscene” material, even if it is for people 18 and older.
"I have the right to say I want to read X, Y, Z, and I don't believe that anyone in Columbus has any right to say that I can't read something," the mom added.
The bill will be heard in the coming months.
Additional Q&A with Mathews
After discussing the initial aspects of the bill and the LGBTQ+ concerns, I asked a series of clarifying questions. This section has been edited lightly, only for clearness and conciseness. It features the crux of Mathew's answers.
You say there are exemptions to the bill. I can't find any — can you explain?
"It is an affirmative defense," he said.
"If the material or performance involved was disseminated or presented for a bona fide medical, scientific, religious, governmental, judicial, or other proper purpose, by or to a physician, psychologist, sociologist, scientist, health or biology teacher, faculty member, person pursuing bona fide studies or research, librarian other than a school librarian, member of the clergy, prosecutor, judge, or other person having a proper interest in the material or performance," the bill states.
With an affirmative defense — that is used in court after you have been charged with a felony.
"You would have that at the discovery and the motion to dismiss."
Wouldn't that still cause people to spend money to go to court?
"We believe by having those affirmative defenses — as well our prosecutors and our judges know what the type of obscenity is in general — you wouldn't have that type of chilling effect."
Even with your intentions that it will only impact cases of pornography, bestiality, etc., people might construe it.
"I would hope that the people would be able to look at the jurisprudence and have trust in their judges or prosecutors, their local school boards. We can have great conversations as we move forward."
Why a felony?
"When we're looking to solve problems, when we're looking to tackle issues, we look at the most accessible ways — and changing the least amount of law possible. Pandering obscenity in any type of setting has those penalties already."
How do your colleagues feel? You are the only one on the bill. Have you talked to leadership?
"I'm excited about this type of bill. With it being very targeted and very specific in a nuanced bill, I wanted to make sure that I could be out here speaking with you... making sure that we're focused on really this specific instance and making sure that the trust between teachers, schools, students and parents is maintained and without it deviating into anything else."
Support from other colleagues? Also, this is being introduced right before break — will this happen?
"I can only control myself, so I'll keep working on bills."
Final thoughts for the people who think this will hurt marginalized communities?
"This is only directed to those types of bizarre violences, cruelties, brutalities — those types of works.
What is necessary to teach about the human person in health class or biology is different than in an English class. It's going to be very fact-dependent, which is why we sit on the precedent and the other definitions that have existed. Judges and prosecutors know how to handle that."
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