Former Sen. and current Alabama gubernatorial candidate Doug Jones (D) has vowed to replace members of the state’s library board who banned trans books from children’s and young adult sections in the state’s public libraries.

The board’s former chairman, John Wahl, who is currently running for Alabama lieutenant governor, has fired back, accusing Jones of wanting to expose young people to “sexually explicit” material and “perversion.”

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State library board bans books that mention trans people from children’s & teen sections

As AL.com reports, Jones recently posted a video on X in which he answered a question from one potential voter about what he would do as governor to support the state’s public libraries.

Jones, who is vying against five other Democratic candidates to become his party’s nominee, promised to be “a champion of public libraries, a champion of free speech, a champion of making sure libraries are free and [patrons] have access to a lot of information.” He went on to connect book-banning efforts to attacks on free speech and the freedom of the press nationwide, describing all three as “under siege.”

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In Alabama, the state Public Library Service board, under Wahl, responded to pressure from anti-LGBTQ+ groups Clean Up Alabama and Moms for Liberty by instituting a tiered system in 2024. Under the system, books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes are banned from children’s and teen sections of the state’s public libraries. The board has blocked state funding to the Fairhope Public Library after it refused to remove several books from its teen section.

In November, the board banned materials that discuss “transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders” from state public libraries’ children’s and young adult sections.

In his February 3 video, Jones said the first thing he would do concerning libraries as governor would be to “get rid of a few people on that library board” and replace them with “people with some common sense and not some crazy political agenda.”

“I understand that there are concerns about some books that may be inappropriate for young kids. That can be remedied without removing them. Those things can be fixed without trying to ban books,” he said. Public libraries, he continued, should be responsive to their communities, but policymakers must also realize “that not everybody in that community thinks exactly the same way.”

“We’ve got to have freedom of thought. We’ve got to have freedom of access to the information,” Jones said. “I guarantee you, if not on Day 1, pretty dang close to it, there are gonna be some vacancies on that Alabama Public Library System Board, for sure.”

As AL.com reports, Wahl, who also served as chair of the Alabama Republican Party from 2021 until announcing his run for lieutenant governor last month, responded to Jones’s comments in a statement this week.

“Alabama families don’t want their kids exposed to this kind of trash, and anyone who has actually reviewed these books understands exactly why,” Wahl said. “This just shows the far-left, Biden-loving, liberal elitist mentality Doug Jones stands for. He actually believes that exposing young children to transgender story hour and pushing books filled with sexually explicit passages and graphic images is normal. It’s not. It’s perversion.”

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