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www.nbcnews.com
LGBTQ book ban proponent faces felony child molestation charge in Missouri
The man tried to have the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home,” among other LGBTQ titles, removed from school libraries in Kansas City.
A Missouri man who sought to ban several LGBTQ books from schools for depicting sexual content is now facing a felony charge of second-degree child molestation.
Ryan Utterback, a 29-year-old parent from a suburb of Kansas City, also faces a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree domestic assault and, in a separate case, a misdemeanor of furnishing or attempting to furnish pornographic material to a minor.
Utterback had spoken at a school board meeting in November, as first reported by local news station KMBC-TV, an ABC affiliate, to advocate for the removal of books in North Kansas City Schools libraries that depicted sexual acts.
Ryan Utterback holds up prints of two pages from “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” at a school board meeting in October.
During another school board meeting in October, Utterback held up enlarged prints of two pages from the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” while a member of a parent association fighting for the ban spoke, arguing that handing the material to a child amounts to “solicitation of a minor.”
Accusations against Utterback, according to court documents, describe separate instances in 2020 in which he allegedly touched a 12-year-old girl under her clothes and rubbed a teenager’s leg underneath her jeans. Another case alleged in 2021 that he showed pornographic video footage to a child starting from when she was around 4 years old.
Utterback is next due in court on March 10. His attorney, David Bell, declined to comment on the record.
North Kansas City Schools declined to comment.
LGBTQ-inclusive books have long topped banned-book lists: Titles with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer themes comprised half of the 20 most challenged and banned books of the decade spanning 2010-19, according to the American Library Association. While challenges against LGBTQ content have historically been “constant,” according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, she told NBC News in November that the association had seen a “chilling” uptick in the previous year.
“I’ve worked at ALA for two decades now, and I’ve never seen this volume of challenges come in,” Caldwell-Stone said at the time.
"Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel.Mariner Books
Mary O’Hara, rapid response manager at the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD, said in an email that challenged books in schools typically undergo an evaluation process by experts in literacy and education, who read them in their entirety to determine their academic and social merit. Many of these books then return to library shelves.
“Book ban advocates have long tried to inaccurately claim that LGBTQ representation in books, films, TV and ads is ‘unsuitable’ or ‘obscene,’ while other media with narratives and themes about opposite-sex relationships — even those with graphic sex or violence — are not targeted,” O’Hara said.
Man who tried to ban LGBTQ books from schools now faces child molestation charge
The man tried to have the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home,” among other LGBTQ titles, removed from school libraries in Kansas City.
www.nbcnews.com
LGBTQ book ban proponent faces felony child molestation charge in Missouri
The man tried to have the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home,” among other LGBTQ titles, removed from school libraries in Kansas City.
A Missouri man who sought to ban several LGBTQ books from schools for depicting sexual content is now facing a felony charge of second-degree child molestation.
Ryan Utterback, a 29-year-old parent from a suburb of Kansas City, also faces a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree domestic assault and, in a separate case, a misdemeanor of furnishing or attempting to furnish pornographic material to a minor.
Utterback had spoken at a school board meeting in November, as first reported by local news station KMBC-TV, an ABC affiliate, to advocate for the removal of books in North Kansas City Schools libraries that depicted sexual acts.
Ryan Utterback holds up prints of two pages from “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” at a school board meeting in October.
During another school board meeting in October, Utterback held up enlarged prints of two pages from the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” while a member of a parent association fighting for the ban spoke, arguing that handing the material to a child amounts to “solicitation of a minor.”
Accusations against Utterback, according to court documents, describe separate instances in 2020 in which he allegedly touched a 12-year-old girl under her clothes and rubbed a teenager’s leg underneath her jeans. Another case alleged in 2021 that he showed pornographic video footage to a child starting from when she was around 4 years old.
Utterback is next due in court on March 10. His attorney, David Bell, declined to comment on the record.
North Kansas City Schools declined to comment.
LGBTQ-inclusive books have long topped banned-book lists: Titles with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer themes comprised half of the 20 most challenged and banned books of the decade spanning 2010-19, according to the American Library Association. While challenges against LGBTQ content have historically been “constant,” according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, she told NBC News in November that the association had seen a “chilling” uptick in the previous year.
“I’ve worked at ALA for two decades now, and I’ve never seen this volume of challenges come in,” Caldwell-Stone said at the time.
"Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel.Mariner Books
Mary O’Hara, rapid response manager at the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD, said in an email that challenged books in schools typically undergo an evaluation process by experts in literacy and education, who read them in their entirety to determine their academic and social merit. Many of these books then return to library shelves.
“Book ban advocates have long tried to inaccurately claim that LGBTQ representation in books, films, TV and ads is ‘unsuitable’ or ‘obscene,’ while other media with narratives and themes about opposite-sex relationships — even those with graphic sex or violence — are not targeted,” O’Hara said.
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