Louisiana Attorney General announced on Wednesday that he will be running for Governor in a nearly seven-minute long video centered around religion, and his service in the National Guard, law enforcement, and Congress. He spoke on issues such as crime, and public education, which Landry says he hopes to tackle as Governor.
In the days leading up to the announcement, Landry has already been telegraphing what that means. In an opinion piece published in the Gonzalez Weekly Citizen, Landry attacked public libraries as “subsidizing the sexualization of children,” claiming that they’re offering “licentious material” and pornography to children. This tactic is popular among conservatives who wish to reframe books that contain information on issues they don’t like – particularly LGBT+ families – as pornography.
“Librarians and teachers are neither empowering nor liberating our children by connecting them with books that contain extremely graphic sexual content that is far from age appropriate for young audiences,” Landry writes. “Instead, they are normalizing and even encouraging behaviors that have regrettably gotten adults addicted to pornography – inevitably leading to lack of intimacy, numbness to experience and connection, or worse.”
Across the US, conservatives have pushed the meaning of “pornography” to include far more than sexual content. In Florida, home of the recently-passed “Don’t Say Gay” law, the conservative Florida Citizens’ Alliance included a children’s book called Mommy, Mama, and Me on a list of so-called “pornographic” books, although the book contains no sex, and is simply about a child’s life with her lesbian parents. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbot called out LGBT titles when accusing Texas schools of stocking pornography. Similar statements have been made by conservative politicians across the country when calling for banning LGBT content from public and school libraries and classrooms.
A PEN America report published in April found that a handful of right-wing conservative groups across the US are pushing to censor books with LGBG+ characters, and characters of color.
“The scope of such censorship has expanded drastically and in unprecedented fashion since the beginning of the 2021-22 school year,” the report found, noting that only 50 groups have played a role in at least half of the book bans across the country.
“Those who are advocating on this issue are within their rights, their freedom mobilization, using their voices and that’s perfectly appropriate,” said Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of PEN America. “But when the end goal is censorship, as a free expression organization, it’s our obligation to call that out and to point out that even the use of legitimate tactics of expression can sometimes lead to a spurious and speech-defeating result.
Landry was a vocal supporter of Louisiana’s own version of Florida’s bill, which failed in the legislative session earlier this year. In 2021, Landry opposed the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX that would prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people, particularly in schools, and in 2019 Landry urged the US Supreme Court to reject workplace protections for transgender people. His use of the commonly-used dog whistle of referring to LGBT-affirming or representative content as pornography in order to mobilize anti-LGBT sentiment and gain popularity ahead of his announcement is not surprising.
