This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The presence of materials that essentially are pornographic or obscene in public and school libraries have become at issue in recent years as parents become aware of the offensive materials and protest.

Those items are in libraries often because of pro-LGBT agenda activists who want to see their lifestyle choices promoted to the point they are accepted.

They argue the First Amendment allows such materials, even though case law has made clear those protections don’t apply to obscene and patently offensive publications.

Now reports confirm that one state is looking at taking what would be a very hard line against those purveyors: possible criminal penalties.

Just the News confirms a new bill in the Georgia legislature would make school librarians liable for the distribution of obscene materials to students.

SB154 would require that the law regarding the “sale or distribution of harmful materials to minors” would be “applicable to libraries operated by schools.”

The proposal from state Sen. Greg Dolezal would make the distribution of such materials “a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.”

In the report, Martha Bongiorno, of the Georgia Library Media Association, insisted that those materials were needed by children.

“If we really care about our students and their mental health and helping them become well-rounded citizens of the world, we need to be able to provide the materials to do that,” she said.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said the state’s current law “shields the gatekeepers at public libraries — plus those at any school, college or university — from criminal prosecution for sharing materials considered irredeemably sexually explicit.”

Cindy Martin, a co-plaintiff in a successful federal lawsuit against Forsyth County Schools over free speech connected with books in libraries there, said there are “explicit books” that are problematic, the report said.

“Martin and Alison Hair had charged there were obscene books in Forsyth school libraries and a federal judge agreed that the school violated their speech rights by banning Hair from meetings,” the report said.

She had read into the public record a sexually suggestive passage from one of the books – a passage the library considered fine for children but banned by the board because of “profane” language.