New Hampshire state Rep. Glenn Cordelli says he hasn’t read “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” 1999 young-adult novel by Stephen Chbosky that deals with issues such as sexual assault and mental health. But that hasn’t stopped him from having an opinion about it.
“If people think that this crap is culture, then we’re in bad trouble in New Hampshire,” the Republican legislator said at a recent hearing, according to a report by Anthony Brooks of WBUR Radio. “These explicit sexual materials have no place in our schools.”
When pressed by Democratic Sen. Debra Altschiller as to whether Cordelli had actually read the entire book, Cordelli replied that he had not — and that he had “no interest” in completing her homework assignment.
Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped Cordelli from filing a bill that would ease the way for parents to challenge books they don’t want their children to have access to. If the bill becomes law, such books could be “restricted or removed from public school classrooms and libraries,” Brooks writes. “The bill would allow parents to their take complaints to the state Department of Education, and expands state obscenity laws.”
For this assault on the right of kids to be educated, Cordelli has richly earned a New England Muzzle Award.
Cordelli’s proposal, House Bill 324, would ban depictions of “nudity,” “sadomasochistic abuse,” “sexual conduct” and “sexual excitement,” all of which are described in such excruciatingly explicit detail that one suspects the legislation itself might be banned from the classroom should it ever be enacted.
Brooks’ report also quotes Katie DeAngelis, a New Hampshire woman who said that reading Chbosky’s book helped her deal with her own experience of sexual assault. “What it did do is make me feel a lot less alone,” she told WBUR.
By the way, Cordelli appears to be quite a piece of work. According to Ethan DeWitt of the New Hampshire Bulletin, he has also filed a bill that would subject anyone who helps an unemancipated pregnant minor get an abortion to criminal and civil penalties.
The book ban that Cordelli and his fellow Republican legislators are pushing for comes in the midst of a repressive political climate in the Granite State. Republicans control both the House and the Senate, and though Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte has at least some moderate credentials, it’s unclear whether she would sign the bill or not.
