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A New Jersey school board has voted to remove an anthology of gay literature and art from a high school library, following complaints from the conservative 9.12 group.

Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology, by Amy Sonnie, features poems, artwork and short stories produced by young homosexuals. 9.12 member Beverly Marinelli told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the book was “pervasively vulgar, obscene, and inappropriate”.

The group, whose motto is “Help us restore America!”, originally demanded that three books be banned. All are work by young people addressing issues of sexuality. The board at Rancocas Valley High School decided to ban just Revolutionary Voices after consultation with legal advisors concluded that books could only be censored on the basis of “obscenity” and not political speech.

The action has provoked angry response from a coalition of American free speech organisations, who have vowed to fight the decision. The National Coalition Against Censorship have twice written to the school board, saying that local residents “have no right to impose their views on others or to demand that the contents of the library reflect their personal, religious, or moral values”.

Lambda Legal, a US civil rights group, have also written to say that removing the book “undermines the school’s obligation and ability to protect students regardless of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity”.

Seemingly undeterred, the local chapter of 9.12 is now trying to have the book removed from the county’s largest school district, Lenape. The Inquirer reported, however, that students are unmoved by the uproar. They quote one pupil as saying, “just because these books are in the library isn’t going to cause us to be gay”.