Call someone a “book banner” and you’ve already almost won the argument. It’s no wonder, then, that Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne recently advised his fellow liberals to lean into the culture war controversy over what books do and don’t belong in school libraries. He suggests “moving from offense to defense,” by insisting that an “effort to close the minds of the next generation will not make its members stronger.” Against this powerful moral argument, Dionne notes that “the right wing is eager for parents to think that progressives support the equivalent of hardcore porn in school libraries.”
But is the right wing right? A three-thousand-word news article published last week in the Washington Post suggests that the answer depends on your definition of “hardcore porn.”
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