Statement from Senate Democrats regarding bill restricting library material

OKLAHOMA CITY – Democratic Leader Kay Floyd and Sen. George Young made the following statements regarding Senate Bill 397, which passed the Senate floor Tuesday. SB 397 would mandate both public and school libraries to develop a new catalog organization system and restrict materials to both adults and children. 

“This bill is another example of Republicans infringing on our freedoms. The author says the bill is about protecting children, but that’s not what this bill does. What it does is limit the rights of adults. Adults of all ages will no longer have access to the full catalog of a public library. Our colleagues continue to demonstrate that they do not trust Oklahomans to make decisions for themselves. What a person reads at the library is not the government's business.” – Democratic Leader Kay Floyd, D-Oklahoma City 

“I fear that this bill will have unintended, or perhaps intended, consequences. Our culture has a bad habit of confusing uncomfortable things with inappropriate things. I am concerned that this bill will remove reading materials that deal with the hard parts of our history, like slavery, Jim Crow, and the genocide of Indigenous people. While confronting those truths may be painful, we cannot move forward if we do not. This bill will hold us back by preventing us from learning from the past.” – Sen. George Young, D-Oklahoma City

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