During a debate over an obscenity bill in the Nebraska legislature, Sen. Steve Halloran (R) read out loud a graphic passage describing sexual violence and inserted a colleague\u2019s name into the text, sparking calls for his resignation from across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n
Before he started reading, he addressed \u201cSenator Cavanaughs,\u201d referring to Sens. Machaela (D) and John Cavanaugh (D), who are siblings, saying he would be reading from a book \u2014 Alice Sebold\u2019s memoir \u201cLucky\u201d \u2014 that a proponent of the bill had read from in an earlier hearing.<\/p>\n
While reciting the passage, however, Halloran inserted the name \u201cSenator Cavanaugh\u201d into passages describing a woman being raped, at one point using the name directly after a character asks for a graphic sexual act. It wasn\u2019t clear which Cavanaugh he was referring to.<\/p>\n
Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh addressed the chamber through tears, describing the Monday evening incident as harassment and called it \u201cunbecoming of [Halloran] and unbecoming of this body.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have done nothing but try to have a respectful debate with Senator Albrecht about her bill that impacts my children,\u201d Cavanaugh said, referring to state Sen. Joni Albrecht (R), who introduced the bill, which seeks to prevent teachers and librarians from sharing \u201cobscene\u201d material even for educational purposes. \u201cThat was so out of line and unnecessary and disgusting to say my name over and over again like that.\u201d She added there are women in the legislature who have experienced sexual violence.<\/p>\n
State Sens. Megan Hunt (I) and Julie Slama (R) publicly called for Halloran\u2019s resignation on the social platform X. Hunt said it was \u201cpure aggression to read a rape scene out loud and put it like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Precious McKesson, head of the Nebraska Democratic Party, called the incident \u201cunacceptable\u201d on X, urging Halloran to \u201cresign now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halloran and Machaela and John Cavanaugh did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
At the time of the incident, lawmakers were discussing Legislative Bill 441, which would remove an exception to the state\u2019s obscenity law for teachers and librarians in non-postsecondary educational settings who are sharing material for educational purposes. The bill describes \u201cobscene\u201d as work that appeals to the \u201cprurient interest\u201d or describes sexual conduct in an offensive way, and \u201clacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.\u201d Opponents of the bill say it threatens teachers and librarians so they don\u2019t put certain books on their shelves.<\/p>\n
The bill comes amid a surge in attempted restrictions on reading materials in schools and libraries across the United States. In 2023, there was a 65 percent increase in titles targeted for censorship from 2022, the American Library Association reported last week.<\/p>\n
Alice Sebold\u2019s \u201cLucky\u201d was the 42nd most banned book in the United States during the 2021-22 school year, according to PEN America data reported by CBS News.<\/p>\n
Albrecht apologized to Cavanaugh in the chamber. \u201cI was mortified that you \u2014 whether your name was put in it, it was not right,\u201d she said and went on to use it as an example of why such materials should not be allowed in schools. \u201cI\u2019m sorry that we even have to read anything like this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sebold\u2019s \u201cLucky,\u201d in which she tells the story of being raped during her freshman year of college, has faced controversy before. Anthony Broadwater, who was convicted of the rape in 1981, was exonerated in 2021 after spending 16 years in prison and years on the sex offender registry, prompting the book\u2019s publisher to stop distributing it.<\/p>\n
Writing in WBUR last year, Boston University associate professor Joshua Pederson says the book offers \u201ca vital perspective both on the trauma of rape and on the still-unfolding sexual assault crisis on our campuses,\u201d and remains important \u2014 perhaps even more so \u2014 after the controversy, which reflects flaws in the judicial system and challenges the urge for \u201cclear-cut ideas about trauma and victimization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. John Cavanaugh said that Halloran \u201cmissed the point\u201d in the remarks he gave on the floor. \u201cThere are graphic scenes in books. There are graphic things that happen to people in life, and stories have context, and they give meaning to the people who read them, who feel alone,\u201d Cavanaugh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole point,\u201d he added, \u201cis that we cannot make a determination writ large about what has value and to whom it has value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after the incident, the legislature adjourned early.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
During a debate over an obscenity bill in the Nebraska legislature, Sen. Steve Halloran (R) read out loud a graphic passage describing sexual violence and inserted a colleague\u2019s name into the text, sparking calls for his resignation from across the political spectrum. Before he started reading, he addressed \u201cSenator Cavanaughs,\u201d referring to Sens. Machaela (D) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}