On Monday, an Orange County judge ordered Huntington Beach to pay $960,000 for legal work done by four legal organizations fighting the city’s violation of the state’s Freedom to Read Act.

But the ruling is only tentative.

As The Orange County Register explained, the ruling is the latest development after the Huntington Beach City Council ordered that any books containing sexually explicit material in the children’s section should be removed to a separate area and only accessed with parental consent. It’s not clear how they defined sexually explicit, but The Register said that some of the restricted titles were “It’s Perfectly Normal” and “Sex is a Funny Word.” Both are designed to be educational, not prurient, and each had approximately 80% five-star ratings on Amazon.

The city council’s directive was issued in October 2023. In February 2024, a former librarian, two local teenagers, and a local nonprofit sued and won. The city was ordered to dismantle its restricted section, restore the library’s teen section, and establish legal protections for librarians, The Register reported.

Sadly, Huntington Beach city councilors are so terrified of a kid learning about sex without their parents’ involvement that they are spending even more taxpayer money to appeal, as per The Register.

Shouldn’t it be up to parents, not city councilors, to determine which books their children can access on their own?

Regardless, the councilors seem oblivious to the fact that sooner or later, inside or outside the library, kids will learn about sex. Isn’t it much better that they learn from a book chosen by a professional librarian?