It’s bad enough that there’s a national effort underway to keep sexually explicit material in the hands of your children. But why on earth are the American Library Association and former President Barack Obama promoting it?

As part of its Orwellian United Against Book Bans project, the ALA website lists the top 13 “most challenged” books of 2022. What’s noteworthy is it actually admits that every single book on the list is being challenged due to sexually explicit content.

Yet this didn’t stop Obama from writing an open letter to the ALA in which he tries to pull the wool over our eyes. “In any democracy, the free exchange of ideas is an important part of making sure that citizens are informed, engaged and feel like their perspectives matter,” Obama writes. “It’s so important, in fact, that here in America, the First Amendment of our Constitution states that freedom begins with our capacity to share and access ideas — even, and maybe especially, the ones we disagree with.”

How inspiring. How eloquent. How dangerously deceptive.

And how contradictory. For one, if our capacity to share and access ideas is so important to Obama and the Democrats, why are they censoring Americans with opposing political and social views? They apparently think it’s just fine for the government to collude with Big Tech to censor certain social media posts. Heck, Democrats even voted this week to prevent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from testifying at a hearing on censorship to which he was invited.

That says it all, doesn’t it? In response to a letter signed by 102 of his fellow Democrats to prevent him from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, Kennedy said flatly, “This is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing.”

Beyond that, there’s an effort underway in which banks and other companies are shutting down accounts of people with unpopular political beliefs. Yet, somehow, we’re supposedly threatening our sacred constitutional freedoms for wanting to keep Lawnboy and The Hips of the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish out of the hands of third-graders.

In truth, conservatives and other good people who want to keep these books out of schools aren’t trying to ban The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — as Democrats have done in the past.

As the editors at National Review write in an unfortunately necessary graphic explanation, “The book that is most commonly described as having been ‘banned’ — by which critics do not actually mean ‘banned,’ but rather ‘moved to a different section within, or removed completely from, public school libraries’ — is Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, a graphic work that, among other things, includes depictions of minors performing oral sex, of male adults having penetrative sex, and of an adult man masturbating a small boy’s penis.”

They add, “Others on the ‘banned’ list are Let’s Talk About It, which features graphic illustrations of masturbation; Flamer, a book about young boys engaging in sexual acts at a summer camp; and This Book Is Gay, a book that demonstrates ‘the ins and outs of gay sex.’”

What accounts for Barack Obama having left out these crucial, revealing, and — let’s face it — grotesque details? Could it be that he wants you to think right-wing parents are pulling Dr. Seuss books off the shelves of our elementary schools?

Oh, never mind. Democrats are actually the ones who claimed Dr. Seuss books were too dangerous and racist for kids to read.

Think about it: The very books Obama wants to keep on the shelves of elementary and middle schools contain such graphic images and language that they couldn’t be read on broadcast television or the evening news. But the groomers writing and pushing these books enjoy the political and financial support of the Democrats.

The Left is so hell-bent on making sure kids get to read the most vile and inappropriate material in school that they’re forcing it on them whether we like it or not. Just this week, for example, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to send textbooks to Temecula Valley Unified School District featuring information about gay rights activist Harvey Milk even after the school board voted to reject the book.

Shouldn’t local school boards be in charge of local school libraries?

But Newsom isn’t stopping there. Instead, he’s petulantly fining the school district $1.5 million plus $1.6 million to cover the shipping costs of the books.

Of course, anyone opposing the Left is accused of hatred against LGBTQXYZ folks or of racism, but as columnist Tyler O'Neil writes, “Parents don’t oppose those books due to racism or animus against those who identify as LGBT — they raised concerns about sexually explicit images and passages in the books.”

In the end, this isn’t about banning books. It’s about protecting children. “There is a distinct difference in challenging books versus a book ban,” our own Emmy Griffin wrote last week. “Those challenged books can still be sold at any bookstore or borrowed from many libraries.”

So, Democrats, maybe it would help to calm down and take a few cleansing breaths. No one’s coming for your books about pedophilia or graphic gay sex. You and Barack Obama can still enjoy them. Just keep them away from our kids.