Bill forces local libraries to move sexually explicit, gay materials

Thursday, March 16th 2006, 6:10 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma House votes to withhold state funding from local libraries that don't restrict children's access to reading material with sexually explicit or gay themes.

House members voted 60-to-33 Wednesday night for the bill after more than two hours of questions and debate in which opponents said the measure was a form of censorship and usurped the control of local library boards.

The measure -- opposed by the Oklahoma Library Association -- now goes to the state Senate, where opponents predicted it will be killed.

Oklahoma City state Representative Debbie Blackburn likened the move to living under the Taliban, the Islamist nationalist group that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001.

The measure's author, Oklahoma City Representative Sally Kern, says children deserve a period of protected innocence in which they are shielded from sexually explicit material she says is turning young people into sex machines.