Protesters read in front of the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Library on March 1, 2025, to express their opposition to a bill that would force libraries to remove and relocate content. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
Members of the North Dakota Republican Party State Committee finally said the quiet part out loud.
This year’s controversial library content bill was not about protecting kids from pornography or obscene material.
The bill was more about anti-LGBTQ+ views, as evidenced by a resolution adopted by the NDGOP State Committee at its recent reorganization meeting.
The resolution that chastises the governor for vetoing Senate Bill 2307 doesn’t mention books. Or libraries.
It describes the bill as “a necessary measure to safeguard children from dangerous, irreversible medical interventions and harmful ideologies that threaten their health, identity and development.”
It goes on to state that the state Republican Party “stands for parental rights, biological reality, and the protection of children from coercion, confusion, and irreversible harm.”
The resolution calls on Republican lawmakers to make it a priority in the 2027 session to pass legislation that “fully protects children from gender transition procedures and other harmful interventions.” (Lawmakers already banned gender-affirming care for minors in 2023, so it’s unclear what they’re calling for here. The law faces a court challenge. And doctors have testified that gender transition surgeries were not performed on minors in North Dakota, even before the law.)
The resolution does not call on lawmakers to do anything related to libraries or so-called obscene material, which is what proponents of the bill focused on during the session. The bill would have required school and public libraries to relocate books deemed “sexually explicit” to areas not easily accessible by minors. It proposed that state’s attorneys investigate and prosecute violations.
The anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment was apparent during the session, with the sponsor of the bill passing out a list of the most challenged library books, many of which had LGBTQ+ characters or themes. Another bill supporter pointed to controversy surrounding a book in a school library that was part of an LGBTQ+ graphic novel series. But the resolution makes it clear that the bill took aim at giving children access to LGBTQ+ books.
The resolution carries no weight and doesn’t even necessarily reflect the views of a majority of North Dakota Republican Party members. But it was supported by a majority of NDGOP district chairs who participated in the June 14 meeting, signaling the type of candidates these districts are likely to endorse. Republicans hold all elected state offices and supermajorities in the Legislature.
The State Committee adopted another resolution expressing anti-LGBTQ+ views as Bismarck-area community members gathered across the street at the Capitol grounds for an annual Pride event.
A resolution meant to support two-parent families defines marriage as a “sacred covenant between one man and one woman.” It references the “biological reality of male and female” and says families “anchored by a married mother and father” are essential to society.
The issue of same-sex marriage was raised in the 2025 legislative session, with the North Dakota House approving a resolution opposing it and the Senate later defeating the resolution.
The fact that the Republican-majority in the Legislature had already waved the white flag on some culture war topics didn’t stop the State Committee from charging ahead.
Members also adopted a resolution that advocates for making it a crime to get an abortion or assist someone in ending a pregnancy.
It’s a position that some North Dakota anti-abortion advocates have opposed and party members who participated in last year’s state convention rejected.
The resolution says “preborn human beings are entitled to the full and equal protection of the laws that prohibit violence against other human beings.”
In addition, it states “anyone who purposefully ends the life of a preborn child is legally answerable for the crime, whether they be a principal offender, accomplice, or co-conspirator of the act.”
The resolution also notes that medication abortion is readily accessible and “abortion will remain widespread and legal in North Dakota as long as abortions can be self-administered with impunity.”
Sen. Janne Myrdal, R-Edinburg, a stalwart anti-abortion advocate in the Legislature, opposed the similarly worded resolution considered at the state convention last year. In an interview this week, Myrdal said she hadn’t seen the latest version but continues to disagree with the approach.
“I just don’t think there’s any purpose in putting women in jail,” Myrdal said.
During the legislative session earlier this year, lawmakers voted down a fetal personhood bill that would have allowed women who obtain abortions to be charged with murder.
North Dakota in 2023 outlawed all abortions except when the pregnancy posed a serious health risk to the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest in the first six weeks of pregnancy. That law was deemed unconstitutional and struck down by a district court judge last fall, who found that women have a right to obtain an abortion until the point of fetal viability. The North Dakota Supreme Court has yet to rule on the state’s appeal.
State Committee members also supported the display of the Ten Commandments on government property and public schools, similar to legislation that failed earlier this year.
Brady Pelton, chair of Bismarck’s District 32, said he was “extremely disappointed” with some of the resolutions. He said the resolutions, which passed with split votes, didn’t go through the usual vetting process and don’t fully reflect the views of North Dakota Republicans.
Even though these resolutions carry no weight, they’re an indication that the push for culture war bills that many North Dakotans are tired of is likely to continue.
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