#sb593

[traegorn]

Some folks are incredibly naive about legislation like Oklahoma's SB593

[strawberryraviegutz]

I REALLY don’t want to make anyone panic and spiral. That’s the last thing I wanna do especially since I tend to spiral a lot myself. But since most of the ppl in this fandom know what type of game is, I want to spread awareness about this bill and I encourage others to do the same.

For any lads fans who live in Oklahoma this could maybe affect you if passed. Even if it’s just in that state it would still be bad because it could make other states follow suit.

On the surface it’s being pushed as a “protect the children/anti CP”bill that’s rlly trying to censor anything pornographic, lgbt related, or just anything these ppl label as “degenerate” even these same ppl are most likely involved in all kinds of sex scandals including ones with minors.

So no they don’t actually care about protecting children nor getting rid of CP. It doesn’t just include porn but also ROMANCE TOO. The bill quite literally violates the constitution.

But PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. THERE ARE WAYS TO STOP THIS!! Whether you live in Oklahoma or not Call and or email your reps/senators along with spreading awareness.

[butterflybutterfree]

Me one day ago: damn I need to finish some of my fanfiction WIPs before i lose interest in them

Me today: damn i need to finish some of my fanfiction WIPs before IT BECOMES A FELONY TO DO SO

[emmacosmic23]

Hey I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about this so let’s talk cause I need someone to make a change.org or some kind of petition

Also I’m saying this stuff as I’m learning about it and from memory however I also think that more people should be talking about this cause I have not seen a single petition for it. Also I am not from Oklahoma so the only thing I’m able to do is bring awareness about it and if there is a petition anywhere pin it on my page.

So let’s talk about Oklahoma bill SB593 what is this bill? Well you see the first part of the bill I’m completely fine with okay, but I also think it’s partially the reason I’ve seen no one talk about it right? The first part of bill actually makes sense cause it goes after child…corn and cornographers I agree with that and if it had stoped there I wouldn’t be talking about it.

The second part of the bill is the red flag part cause essentially they want to make Romance novels (writing, reading, narrating, etc.) illegal, WITH A 10 YEAR PRISON SENTENCE AND ADD YOU ON THE SEX OFFENDER LIST…I’m gonna give you a minute to let that sink in. If you own let’s say The Seven Husband of Evelyn Hugo like I do, you could be put on the sex offender list. Ali Hazelwood could be a sex offender under this law.

“Oh But this is a bill in Oklahoma how is this gonna affect me” not to call you dumb but…you know how trends work right? You know how they work once somebody does it another person does it and then another and another and I saw a lady named Parkrose Permaculture say that this is a test case and they use test cases like these in conservative states to then later roll them out to the rest of the country

And I’m gonna say between the lines cause there’s no hiding it if this bill passes men can bring a civil action against a woman who produces this material and if said woman is found guilty cannot stress this enough it is a FELONY AND $100,000 PER VIOLATION. So not just over all if you have Evelyn Hugo and idk Book Lovers that’s already $200,000

And it makes sense cause a lot of the romance novels I’ve read have women choosing for themselves…so just think about that when you wonder why they want to do this.

[catkora]

Oklahoma is attempting to pass a bill that would ban explicit romance novels. Authors, narrators, and sellers could all face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each instance.

If you live in OK, call your representative and tell them this bill should not be allowed to pass.

This is likely a test case. Republicans will try to pass it in OK and if it passes other states will likely try to pass similar laws.

In the meantime, get physical copies of books you like. Download those pdfs. Archive your AO3 stories and keep them on a physical hard drive. (Storing those files in the cloud could be problematic in the future as the company managing the cloud service can see what your files are)

[luckystarchild]

Also, in case their intentions are not clear, the people who introduced this bill have explicitly stated they want to ban porn entirely.

"Prohibits pornography in general." That's a stated goal of Project 2025, and that's what they state here plain to see.

If you don't think they'll eventually target fanfic, especially considering the prevalence of queer content in the fan community... well, I don't know what to tell you.

This should not shock you. This should not surprise you. Keep your head on a swivel and take action, now.

I've been on high alert over obscenity laws and related legislation that could affect the queer community (and the fanfic community, of which I'm very much a part). Awareness leads to action. I refuse to keep my eyes shut.

Oklahoma Bill SB 593 is trying to define pornography in such a way that it could include (through what appears to be intentionally vague language) open-door romance scenes, making the production/distribution of those materials a felony. And that obviously could include explicit fanfic in addition to romance novels, TV series, films, and more.

While much of the bill uses the term "image," they also say "any depiction," which in theory opens the door for writing and other mediums. That vague language is not a bug; that is a feature. Read the description here of what this bill would classify as pornography.

"Defines [...] to include any depiction that shows sexual intercourse [...] normal or perverted."

And the first example they list (no surprise here) is a sex act that is common in the queer community as well as het couples. It's followed by an act meant to shock, but they follow it up with more very normal sexual acts. But as they stated, "normal OR perverted" would be considered unlawful under this bill. All of this is bundled with an increased penalty for creating/distributing CSAM, but it's not just increasing penalties for those materials. This bill is far-reaching, puritanical, and dangerous, and it would give them the ability to classify any materials they deem obscene to be pornography. I have no doubt they would bend definitions to disproportionately punish some communities over others.

THIS BILL HAS NOT PASSED.

This bill has not passed yet. It has been introduced, but it has not passed yet. Do not comply in advance and take anything down. But be aware that bills like this have been the plan of Project 2025 from the get-go, and if your state introduces anything like this, you NEED to take action. You need to make calls, organize, and DO SOMETHING.

Do not sit with your head in the sand. Keep alert. I'm not in Oklahoma, but Texas often follows Oklahoma in measures like this, and I will not be silent in the event they try to pull shit like this in my state. This is why I remain aware.

If you're in Oklahoma, MAKE SOME DAMN CALLS PLEASE!

*a felony is typically defined as a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than one year or by the death penalty

[traegorn]

Oklahoma bill SB593 would outlaw any depictions of sex in any medium

[chadunderwoodrealtor-blog]

Open House on Saturday from 12-2pm - Contact The Jessica Hargis Group at 469 351 9516 for more info today! http://www.qoo.ly/sb593

[nancydhooper]

It’s Time to End New Hampshire’s Death Penalty

New Hampshire has the opportunity to get rid of the death penalty. A bill to repeal heads to the Governor’s desk.

New Hampshire is the only state in New England that still has the death penalty. That has to change. This archaic practice defies New Hampshire values and defies justice. The state has come close to repealing capital punishment in the past only to fall short.

There is now a renewed push to end this barbaric punishment in the current legislative session. A bill in the State Senate (SB593), which would replace capital punishment with life in prison without parole for convictions after January 2019, has broad support. It was approved by a 14-to-10 vote in the state Senate in March, and sailed through the New Hampshire House with a vote today of 223 to 116.

The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Chris Sununu, who has threatened to veto it. Though he has stated his support for the death penalty, he would not be the first to change his views. Views among legislators on the death penalty have evolved in recent years, and the state Senate vote is a prime example. Many who supported the repeal bill this year had previously voted against repeal. They shifted because the best way to ensure that New Hampshire does not execute an innocent person is to repeal the death penalty. As one witness said at the House hearing on the repeal bill: “It is either dangerously arrogant or incredibly naïve to believe that New Hampshire’s criminal justice system is infallible.”

The witness was Barbara Keshen, who now heads the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Several years ago, Keshen, who was a public defender, had been assigned to represent Richard Buchanan, who was charged with raping and murdering his girlfriend’s young daughter, Elizabeth Knapp. All the evidence seemed to indicate that Buchanan committed the crime. The state Attorney General reassured people in the neighborhood that they need not be in fear as they had the guy who did it. Keshen has said even she believed her client was guilty. The prosecutor said he was going for the death penalty.

But for the DNA contained in a condom that was later found, tying the crime to a next-door neighbor, Buchanan would have almost certainly been wrongfully convicted and wrongfully sentenced to death. The case against Buchanan was such a slam-dunk that when the DNA evidence from the condom first came back, even Keshen said she did not believe it.

Some hold this case up as proof that wrongful convictions do not happen in New Hampshire. But the opposite is true. The Buchanan case shows the fallibility of the system and the potential for wrongful convictions in New Hampshire. If DNA evidence had not been discovered in the Buchanan case, the outcome could have been devastatingly wrong. It’s chilling to think that a life depended on finding a single exculpatory piece of evidence.

So long as the death penalty stays on the books, there is a risk of a wrongful capital conviction. Yet supporters of capital punishment in the state House insist that it should remain as a form of “deterrence.” That argument suffers from the same false logic of the “get tough on crime” philosophy that has driven criminal justice policy for decades. That philosophy has not made us safer; instead, it has led to mass incarceration and permanently subjected people with criminal records to second-class status.

The same goes for the death penalty. It does not act as a deterrent. People who commit capital crimes do not stop to weigh prison time versus death row. If the death penalty were a deterrent, states that repeal the death penalty would see spikes in their murder rate, but they don’t. In fact, states that do not have the death penalty have lower murder rates than states that still have it. On a national level, the United States has a per capita murder rate significantly higher than European nations, which abolished the death penalty years ago.

New Hampshire lawmakers have shown that the state is ready for abolition of this savage penalty. The only question is whether Gov. Sununu will defy the Legislature and demand that New Hampshire keep this ineffective, inhumane, and regressive practice on the books.

TAKE ACTION HERE

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/its-time-end-new-hampshires-death-penalty via http://www.rssmix.com/

[bug-swarm]

Could you maybe point out where you are finding this info from? Because the only Oklahoma Senate bill SB593 Im seeing is this one (direct link to the text of the bill)

And that... does not do what you are saying it would do. Don't get me wrong, that bill is also harmful and not good, but it definitely does not "make writing/publishing/owning an explicit romance book a felony".

That bill does 3 things: renames Child Pornography to Child Sexual Abuse Materials (good. That is the current accepted terminology and its good to update those kinds of things), 2: says victims of trafficked CSAM (or 'unlawful pornogaphy' which ill cover in a second) can seek damages of not less than $50k, and lastly 3: bans visual depictions (ie. Images or video) of pornography of any kind and declares it to be obscene specifically (very bad). The only exception to that rule is "spouses sending images of a sexual nature to each other". (Which hilariously means sending a sexual video to your spouse would still be illegal, or sending a sexual image to your boyfriend or anyone else you know).

So unless there is another bill out there that does something like what you are saying, and while this bill should still be opposed, this bill does not do what you are saying it does as far as i can tell from reading the text, and opposing a bill for doing something it doesn't actually do hurts the argument against the bill since it can easily be fact checked

For all those who complain about explicit “smutty” books or smut in fic in general:

Just be aware that a bill has been introduced in Oklahoma’s state senate (SB 593) that would make writing/publishing/owning an explicit romance book a felony.

So, when you come on here to espouse your “anti pro-ship” nonsense, or moan about how hard it is to find fics/art/books that aren’t “smutty” — know that this is the effect. You are being used as mouthpieces to help feed and perpetuate censorship. There is no room for censorship in fiction because it will never stop at what you deem morally “right”. It is about control and the restriction of speech. Your discomfort with sex in media does not make it wrong, and it certainly doesn’t mean you get to advocate for its restriction.

Do not be pawns in the far-right’s game. Do not call yourselves allys of any kind if you are willingly feeding into a pillar of far right extremism. It will not stop where you think it “should.”

[thelovelygods]

full announcement:

Deevers Introduces Slate of Legislation to Restore Moral Sanity in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, announced on Tuesday a bold slate of eight legislative measures aimed at restoring moral sanity in Oklahoma. Together, these bills set a course for pushing back against the moral decay foisted upon Oklahoma by the far-left’s march through our institutions to destroy the moral foundations upon which the United States and Christian Civilization had long rested.

“Sadly, the left’s century-long assault on morality and decency has been so successful that some have come to accept as normal a society that is drowning in hardcore pornography, prenatal homicide, and sexual performances for children. None of this is normal. Each one of these evils is a result of a policy choice to not stand for what we know is right. Opposing these evils does not mean we are extremists. It means we are sane,” Deevers said.

“Contrary to what the left would have us believe, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can and should imagine and move toward a society that celebrates virtue in the public square rather than vice. We can restore normalcy, decency, and morality; we can protect the most vulnerable, restore a high view of marriage, and shield children from explicit material that can warp their innocent minds. We simply must have the courage to stand against the most radical and degenerate elements of the far-left.”

SB456 – The Abolition of Abortion Act

SB456 seeks to protect the lives of all preborn children in Oklahoma by closing the self-managed abortion loophole. While clinics may be prohibited from performing abortions, pro-life laws currently being enforced allow mothers to order abortion pills online and administer them herself. Recent research from the Foundation to Abolish Abortion shows that an estimated 3,274 self-managed abortions are taking place annually in Oklahoma.

“This bill declares that life begins at conception and ensures that no person may lawfully terminate the life of a child in the womb. Preborn children are just as human as we are and our laws should reflect that,” Deevers said. “We cannot pat ourselves on the back when the job is clearly not done. Children are still being murdered under the color of our laws. It is time to step up and truly protect life in Oklahoma by abolishing abortion.”

SB593 – Increasing Penalties for Child Pornography and Prohibiting Pornography in Oklahoma

SB593 significantly heightens existing zero-to-20-year penalties for the possession, distribution, and production of child sexual assault material to 10-to-30 years. It also includes a provision that any subsequent offense for child sexual assault material results in 15-50 years in prison. “There is perhaps no more psychopathic and antisocial behavior in existence than producing, distributing, or watching child sexual abuse material,” Deevers said. “These people should not be back on our streets after brief stints behind bars. Rather, they should be locked away for decades at a minimum.”

The bill also prohibits pornography in general, providing for criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison for production, distribution, or possession. It also provides heightened 10-to-30-year criminal penalties for organized pornography trafficking. “Pornography is both degenerate material and a highly addictive drug,” Deevers said. “It ruins marriages, ruins lives, destroys innocence, warps young people’s perception of the opposite sex, turns women into objects, turns men into objects, degrades human dignity, and corrodes the moral fabric of society. Any decent society will stand against this plague with the full weight of the law.”

SB550 – Prohibiting Drag Performances for Children

SB550 would ensure that Oklahoma kids are not subjected to adult cabaret performances including Drag Queen Story Hour. Under the provisions of the bill, the performer would be subject to a prison sentence of one-to-five years, while the organizer of the event would face up to one year behind bars.

“There is perhaps no more glaring and disgusting example of the left’s rejection of morality and decency than their insistence on pushing sexual content onto children in particular. It is ridiculous that this has to be said, but children should not be exposed to adult cabaret performances,” Deevers said. “There should be unceasing righteous indignation that these people are allowed to market and perform their sexual content specifically to and for young kids.”

SB228 – The Covenant Marriage Act

The Covenant Marriage Act would allow for couples in Oklahoma to opt into a covenant marriage, based on the traditional understanding of marriage as a binding legal contract with meaningful vows to one another. Covenant marriages would only be able to be dissolved in cases of abuse, adultery, or abandonment. Couples who opt into a covenant marriage would be eligible for a $2,500 tax credit.

“This bill is about promoting the religious liberty of people who wish to enter marriage on religious terms, as well as rewarding those who do what is best for their children by committing to one another for life,” Deevers said. “Marriage has been so degraded that it has become one of the flimsiest legal contracts in our society. We need to restore a high view of marriage, and this bill does that by allowing couples to opt out of the no-fault divorce scheme.”

SB829 – Prohibiting No-Fault Divorce

This bill would end no-fault divorce in Oklahoma by removing “incompatibility” as a justification for divorce, leaving abandonment, gross neglect, extreme cruelty, habitual drunkenness, insanity for a period of five years, adultery, unknown pregnancy, and fraudulent contract as the available justifications. It also establishes that the at-fault parent must pay restitution to the victims of divorce–that is, the children–in the form of a trust fund that they get access to when they turn 18.

“Marriage vows were binding until 50 years into the sexual revolution when the no-fault divorce scheme was first brought to America. The results for children and society as a whole could not be worse,” Deevers said. “A society that teaches and allows a marriage covenant to be less important and binding than a business contract will reap the fruit of social upheaval, unfettered dishonesty, crime, violence towards women, war on men, and expendability of children. To devalue marriage is to devalue the family is to undermine the foundation of a thriving society. This bill both promotes a high view of marriage by making it a meaningful and binding contract, while also protecting people’s right to get away from an abusive spouse.”

SB281 – The Make Adoption Affordable Again Act

SB281 provides tax credits to families seeking to adopt and to those who donate to adoption-facilitating organizations, reducing financial barriers and encouraging the care of orphaned and vulnerable children. The bill would provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 for individuals and $50,000 for businesses.

“Every child deserves a family,” said Deevers. “There are many families who are interested in adoption but unable to afford the exorbitant costs. This bill makes adoption a viable option for more families.”

SB328 – The Promote Child Thriving Act

SB328 establishes a $500 tax credit per child for a mother and father filing jointly. The credit is escalated to $1,000 if the child was born after the marriage of the parents.

“Statistically, growing up in a two-parent household is strongly correlated with virtually every good thing in a child’s life, including educational achievement, emotional health, and staying out of jail,” Deevers said. “There is no greater factor in the well-being and future success of a child than whether they grew up in a two-parent household with their mother and father. It’s not even close. Accordingly, it would be irresponsible of us not to promote two-parent households.

“I know that not everyone benefits from this act, but everyone should support what is good for kids, and growing up with one’s mother and father is, in the vast majority of cases, the most important factor in a child’s well-being. As a woman on social media put it, ‘Love to see it. I had two children out of wedlock, one after. I wouldn’t be mad to not qualify, I just want to see children thrive.’”

SB736 – Equal Tax Status for Health Share Ministries

SB736 grants health share ministries, such as Samaritan Ministries and Liberty Healthshare, the same tax benefits as traditional insurance, ensuring that those who opt for these plans are not discriminated against in the tax code. “Health care should honor our convictions,” said Deevers. “This bill ensures that families who choose Christ-centered health solutions are not penalized.”

State legislation to:

1. Abolish abortion

2. Prohibit all pornography

3. Ban drag queen story hour and other drag performances for children

4. Introduce a new kind of marriage that is harder to get a divorce from (with tax credit)

5. Ban no fault divorce

6. Bigger tax credits for adoption

7. Tax credit for children if parents file jointly, and a bigger tax credit if their DoB is after their parents are married

8. Promoting faith-based health shares as equivalent to insurance

Always good to see what states where Republicans are wholly unchecked are cooking up, so here we have it.

[howimportantisausernameanyway]

Here's the link to follow the bill:

http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=sb593&Session=2500

Right now, nothing has actually happened. Most bills hit this stage and stop, because nobody else wants to get blamed for whatever the stupid bill does. I'm not sure how terrible Oklahoma is right now, though.

I'd also note that this doesn't, on the face of it, ban textual (or drawn) depictions of sex, only photographs/movies and such. Republicans will ban those next, but they're not there yet.

The actual problem is a bit more nuanced. First, this bill explicitly encourages private lawsuits against anyone breaking this law. Let's say you happen to be a small bookstore owner. If you happen to put, say, a book of photography that's a bit less artistic and a bit more racy than you expected on the shelf, well now you're distributing unlawful pornography, and anyone who notices can sue you for $10,000+ per image, plus court costs. It's not like books are labeled appropriately for this new law, so every photograph in every book is a potential minefield.

Not only that, but you are explicitly forbidden from recovering court costs from frivolous lawsuits brought under this act. If someone decides your back copies of National Geographic are actually degenerate smut, they can still sue you, and you kind of have to defend against that lawsuit properly, because otherwise you could be out millions of dollars. The main defense against frivolous lawsuits is the ability to recover attorney fees, which is explicitly disallowed. This allows the destruction of any bookstore or similar business that can't afford to keep an attorney on staff; just file baseless suit after suit after suit. In practical terms, this will be applied primarily towards businesses that deal in material the community as a whole finds offensive, even if it's following the law. (i.e. Queer content.) You can't just stick to the letter of the law, you have to make sure you're not doing anything that could be conceivably misconstrued as breaking the law, or would cause offense to the worst person in your town. Is your Watchmen comic book illegal? Well, it has dicks in it, so better take it off the shelf to be safe.

The extreme danger is that if you happen to be a sex worker who deals in photographs or movies, and lives inside Oklahoma, this bill screws you over. Anyone who realizes what you do for a living can sue you for $10,000+ per image, or blackmail you over this.

(Not to mention the giant minefield this creates around dating. Go on a dating app, find a nice suckerperson, ask for a few nudes, then sue them.)

Oklahoma is attempting to pass a bill that would ban explicit romance novels. Authors, narrators, and sellers could all face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each instance.

If you live in OK, call your representative and tell them this bill should not be allowed to pass.

This is likely a test case. Republicans will try to pass it in OK and if it passes other states will likely try to pass similar laws.

In the meantime, get physical copies of books you like. Download those pdfs. Archive your AO3 stories and keep them on a physical hard drive. (Storing those files in the cloud could be problematic in the future as the company managing the cloud service can see what your files are)

[stjohnstarling]

Yeah, the details regarding what precisely this bill seeks to criminalize are deliberately difficult to parse, but the claim that it "would ban explicit romance novels" and that "authors, narrators, and sellers could all face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each instance" is certainly inaccurate.

“No person shall knowingly photograph, act in, pose for, model for, print, sell, offer for sale, give away, exhibit, publish, offer to publish, or otherwise distribute, display, or exhibit any book, magazine, story, pamphlet, paper, writing, card, advertisement, circular, print, picture, photograph, motion picture film, electronic video game or recording, image, cast, slide, figure, instrument, statue, drawing, presentation, or other article which is obscene material, unlawful pornography, or child sexual abuse material, as defined in Section 1024.1 of this title.” "Unlawful pornography” is defined by the bill, in ironically pornographic detail, as “any visual depiction or individual image stored or contained in any format on any medium including, but not limited to, film, motion picture, videotape, photograph, negative, undeveloped film, slide, photographic product, reproduction of a photographic product, play, or performance in which a person is engaged in any of the following acts with a person: a. sexual intercourse which is normal or perverted, b. anal sodomy, c. sexual activity with an animal, d. sadomasochistic abuse, e. flagellation or torture, f. physical restraint such as binding or fettering in the context of sexual conduct, g. fellatio or cunnilingus, h. excretion in the context of sexual conduct, i. lewd exhibition of the uncovered genitals in the context of masturbation or other sexual conduct, and j. lewd exhibition of the uncovered genitals, buttocks, or, if such person is female, the breast, for the purpose of sexual stimulation of the viewer.”  Violating this law would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine of at least $2,000, or both.

(Emphasis mine.)

To be clear, this bill is an extremely serious attack on free expression, and it is vital that we resist any attempt to curtail sexual freedom.

SB593 is one of a slate of bills with which this cartoonishly-named person is also seeking to criminalize things including no-fault divorce, access to abortion medications by mail, and drag performances (citations in the article linked above.) There's no need to exaggerate the facts here.

Oklahoma is attempting to pass a bill that would ban explicit romance novels. Authors, narrators, and sellers could all face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in jail for each instance.

If you live in OK, call your representative and tell them this bill should not be allowed to pass.

This is likely a test case. Republicans will try to pass it in OK and if it passes other states will likely try to pass similar laws.

In the meantime, get physical copies of books you like. Download those pdfs. Archive your AO3 stories and keep them on a physical hard drive. (Storing those files in the cloud could be problematic in the future as the company managing the cloud service can see what your files are)