Did you know that the Biden Administration aggressively fought to keep obscene materials in school libraries against the efforts of parents to remove them? I didn’t. I had no idea and I’ve tried to keep up on these issues.

I knew that the American Library Association and other liberal organizations lobbied legislators, brought lawsuits, and initiated propaganda campaigns to paint all efforts to remove pornographic books from schools as being fascist book bans akin to Hitler’s Nazi book burnings. But I had no idea that federal government officials had formally taken up the cause of the pornography promoters.

This only came to my attention when the Trump Administration recently moved to terminate the Biden Administration’s contemptible actions.

It all started in February 2022 when a complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Atlanta Office of Civil Rights (OCR), alleging Forsyth County GA schools violated Title IX and Title VI by removing certain books with sexually explicit content from the school libraries. Reportedly, the books that were removed all had LGBT themes. It was alleged that the action created a hostile environment for LGBT students.

After an initial investigation, the Atlanta OCR dismissed the complaint, but OCR headquarters in Washington, D.C, quickly reversed that decision. The inquiry by OCR headquarters determined the complaint was valid. Rather than fight the government in court, the local school board signed a resolution agreement with OCR in May 2023.

The next month, President Biden appointed Matt Nosanchuk as the book ban coordinator for the OCR. His official title was Deputy Assistant Secretary, and his job was to multiply the success the office had in Georgia.

Nosanchuk is a lawyer who graduated from Stanford Law School. He clerked for Judge Walter J. Cummings on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. He worked on Obama’s campaign for president and has been actively involved in LGBT rights causes through his private law practice and his involvement with NGOs.

He served in various positions in the Obama Administration and the Biden Administration. During Obama’s tenure as President, Nosanchuk worked in the White House as a Jewish Liaison, in the Department of Justice as a point person on LGBT rights issues, and in the State Department assigned to counter anti-LGBTQ+ policies in countries where religious institutions opposed equality efforts and coordinated with foreign governments and NGOs on LGBTQ+ protections. As mentioned above, President Biden appointed him to the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

Nosanchuk had been married and has a son, but his marriage ended when he came out as gay in 2005. It’s one thing to be gay. It’s quite another to insist that gay porn be available to children in the public-school libraries.

There is no question that it was porn that the OCR was protecting.

The complaint against the Forsyth County schools reportedly involved the removal of several books, including:

• All Boys Aren’t Blue
• Nineteen Minutes
• The Bluest Eye
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower

All these books are rated as “Not for Minors” by BookLooks.org. You can look up examples of the contents of these books on that website. The narratives in these books include sexual assault, sexual activity by minors, profanity, racism, and other topics inappropriate for children.

Parents who have objected to these books being available in school libraries and have read excerpts from them at school board meetings to make a point of how objectionable they are, have had their microphones cut off and have been ordered removed from the meeting. It’s not ok for adults to hear these passages read to them, but it is ok for children to have access to the books in the library.

Ridiculous.

Why would anyone want a child to be exposed to such unwholesome subjects? Why would anyone fight for children’s right to access such material?

In Ginsberg v. New York (1968), the U.S. Supreme Court established the principle of “variable obscenity” in applying different obscenity standards for minors than are used for adults. Material that might be acceptable for adults can be considered obscene for children. Justice Brennan, in his majority 6-3 opinion, wrote:

• That the government has a legitimate interest in protecting minors from exposure to material that might harm their moral, emotional, or intellectual development

• That minors do not have the same First Amendment protections as adults, and the state has broader authority to regulate what minors can access

• That the law did not prevent adults from purchasing or viewing the material, so it struck a balance between protecting children and respecting adults’ free speech rights

The key principles that this ruling established were:

(1) Variable Obscenity, that material that is not obscene for adults can be deemed harmful and restricted for minors;

(2) Parental Rights and State Interest, that parents have primary responsibility for raising their children but the state has a complementary role in ensuring children’s welfare and protecting them from harmful influences; and

(3) Tailored Restrictions, laws targeting minors can be more restrictive without violating the Constitution, as long as they are narrowly tailored and do not unduly infringe on the rights of adults.

How far we have fallen.

In 1968, the government was working to prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate sexually explicit material even if the parents failed to do so. Today, we have an entire political party, the Democrat Party, which is fighting to ensure children access to such material despite the objections of parents.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Reuben Sturman of Cleveland, Ohio, was the largest pornography distributor in the county and was closely linked to the mob. He sometimes was referred to as the “Walt Disney of Porn.” Not only was he the biggest distributor of pornographic magazines and books, but he also pioneered coin-operated live peep shows, which were available in many adult bookstores.

He once owned over two hundred companies in nineteen states and six foreign countries. At its peak, his businesses grossed between $1 million and $2 million per day, which was a vast amount of money in the 1970s.

When I worked for the State of Illinois investigating the sexual exploitation of children during the 70s and 80s, Sturman became a target of our investigation. We suspected that he may have been distributing child pornography along with the adult material he sent out by the truckload.

We determined he was not.

Nevertheless, the local, state and federal authorities relentlessly pursued Sturman during those years. They were determined to shut down his operations. He was finally indicted on tax evasion charges in 1985 and was convicted in 1989. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. While still in prison, he was charged and convicted of obscenity and extortion charges. Another nineteen years were added on. He died in federal prison in 1997.

The reason I bring this up about Sturman is that all the resources of law enforcement had been directed at shutting Sturman down. His pornography distribution was the primary concern and is what brought him to the attention of the authorities.

He was a criminal.

In those days, the government cooperated to take down his operation and those of others like him. In contrast, today we have members of the government at all levels who are helping pornography producers put their pornographic materials into our schools and into the hands of children. Nobody in the government today is going after publishers who are determined to sexualize the next generation.

Instead, the government is helping them.

President Trump has eliminated the department in USDOE that was working to stop book bans in local schools. But that does nothing to prevent local and state governments from blocking such bans, which many are, including here in Illinois.

Moreover, President Trump will not be in office forever. The next administration can come in and rehire Nosanchuk or someone like him to force schools to make pornography available to all students. It is imperative that we don’t rely on someone else to deal with this problem.

The key to solving the long-term problem is to take control of government at the local and state levels. That means supporting people with common sense, people who support the founding principles of our country, people who model biblical principles and values, people who are leaders and work well with others.

It might mean running for office yourself.

Flee also youthful lusts;
but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace
with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
~2 Timothy 2:22~