quote:Gay book ban goal of state lawmaker Wednesday, December 01, 2004
KIM CHANDLER News staff writer
MONTGOMERY - An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.
A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."
"Our culture, how we know it today, is under attack from every angle," Allen said in a press conference Tuesday.
Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.
"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.
A spokesman for the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center called the bill censorship.
"It sounds like Nazi book burning to me," said SPLC spokesman Mark Potok.
Allen pre-filed his bill in advance of the 2005 legislative session, which begins Feb. 1.
If the bill became law, public school textbooks could not present homosexuality as a genetic trait and public libraries couldn't offer books with gay or bisexual characters.
When asked about Tennessee Williams' southern classic "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," Allen said the play probably couldn't be performed by university theater groups.
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You know, that story puts me in the mood to open a private school in Alabama and teach from every book on the list of 'banned books'. Posts: 873 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Why withhold judgement until the bill passes? The bill is just symptomatic of the general dipshittery of this kind of thinking. The disease is this guy and and people like him: they suck.
I would almost be willing to bet he is just a mouthpiece for a larger coalition of conservatives who will try and force their views on bookstores and libraries through other means if the bill doesn't pass--boycotts, letter writing campaigns, protests, lawsuits, etc.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I heard a great quote related to this once... It's from Jeff Dunham, my favorite comedian (He's a ventriloquist, actually, but still...)... "Last week we were in Alabama...We were talking to a man in the front row who for a living was an English teacher. COULD THERE BE a more difficult job than being an English teacher in ALABAMA?! How do you teach the classics there? 'Romeo oh Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?' 'I'm down here in the bushes takin a piss!'"
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Sadly, had Jeff Dunham talked with that English teacher a little more, he might have learned that "wherefore art thou" cannot normally be answered with a physical location.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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This one really doesn't hold a candle, though, to the time when the snake handling preacher died here. He was bitten by a snake during a service, then continued to preach for 15 minutes until he finally succumbed to the venom. Apparently they take the Bible pretty literally when it says
quote: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
(Mark 16;17-18)
Curiously enough, though, the fact that he died of the bite wasn't taken by his congregation as evidence of weak faith.
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That was one of the things that I always wondered about with snake-handling religions. It doesn't seem like they appreciate the logic of their own assumptions.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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msquared -- thanks, I fixed it, I actually didn't mean the title to be inflammatory, I meant to use something like you suggested. (Anyone ever notice how thread titles have a tendency to get more typos and errors in them than the posts themselves?)
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Ah, Ann Kate, I drove past a church during the 2000 elections who's billboard read, "Jesus votes no on the lottery," and wondered what county he was registered in.
PS: I think the snake handler incident was before my time, but if it happened in Scottsborro, there's a City Confidential that A&E did about it.
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*strangles this guy* Damn, I hate censorship of any kind... Isn't that contrary to the concept of America being a free country? And is it any wonder they have such wrong and warped ideas about gay people if they don't read books with gay themes in them without thinking "EVIL"?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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There seems to be, in my casual observation, a plethora of restriction-oriented legislation. The ill-concieved constitutional amendment, some stuff in my own state about wind power generators, some new anti-p2p laws, and a few others. Maybe it's just that I've been reading the news a lot more. *shrug*
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Well, given that the terrorists hate our freedom, taking it away is probably the best way to keep us safe....
Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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So, this guy thinks that not mentioning homoseuxality will make it go away? How stupid is that?
But I think this bothers me just as much as the book censorship:
quote:If the bill became law, public school textbooks could not present homosexuality as a genetic trait....
I really have a huge problem with trying to legislate science. Isn't that what they used to do in the old Soviet Union? Now, I understand that there is still debate over whether gayness is partly or wholly genetic but this bill, if passed, would ban teaching that it is genetic even if that were determined to be the case.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Olivetta, I'd be very surprised if no one takes the bill seriously. After all, many people feel their money should not be used for puroses they find to be objectionable. A lot of people find homosexuality objectionable. It only follows that they wouldn't want their tax dollars to support anything that makes being gay mainstream.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I heard about this yesterday on Air America radio. I thought it was a stupid idea than and I still do. Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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Avid Reader, this is why I don't think he'll be taken very seriously -
quote: Allen has sponsored legislation to make a gay marriage ban part of the Alabama Constitution, but it was not approved by the Legislature.
Dude, it's freaking Alabama and he couldn't get a proposed gay marriage ban through the legislature. Tht leads me to believe he's the sort of lawmaker that other lawmakers back away from slowly. It's too extreme. Heck, there are OSC stories that could be banned under that wording, and HE'S a devout Mormon!
I reall hope this is too extreme. It would even ban books that depict heterosexual characters who violate the state sodomy laws, which I think would restrict romance novels and stuff, too.
I can hardly wait to see what the Daily Show does with this. Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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True, Chris. I had assumed it was recent, since it seems to be the 'in thing' lately (Georgia passed its gay marriage ban this past election).
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:"Half the books in the library could end up being banned. It's all based on how one interprets the material," Owes said.
Here's the problem I have with what he's proposing. It's too broad and includes limitation of what's available to adults capable and responsible for discerning right from wrong. Regardless of whether you think homosexual expression is right or wrong, public libraries and university libraries should not be forced to limit their selections based on protecting adults from themselves. These are decisions to be left to adults.
I am, however, in agreement that books with homosexual expression, whether for or against, should stay out of public elementary schools, whether in the classroom or in the library. They have no place there. At that age level, kids are *not* thinking about sex except in a "Ew, yuck" sense. It would take some work to convince me that discussion and/or reading material about homosexuality has a place in elementary schools.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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If you tweaked that slightly to state that discussion and/or reading materials about sexuality, of any kind, have no place in elementary schools I might throw in with you. I don't particularly want promotion of any sexual activity in elementary school libraries.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I heard about this last night - someone has this comment to make:
quote: We don't like What we don't understand In fact it scares us And this monster is mysterious at least Bring your guns Bring your knives Save your children and your wives We'll save our village and our lives We'll kill the Beast!
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By that reasoning, jeniwren, it should be reasonable to ban books that show opposite sex couples in any fashion as well.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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fugu, if it was explicitely sexual, then yep, I'd be for throwing those out too. They don't have a place in an elementary school, IMO. A married couple ala Cheaper by the Dozen, however doesn't discuss having sex to produce all those kids.
By the same token, an age appropriate book where two people live together, but there is no discussion or intimation that they have sex together (like, say, the Anne of Green Gables series, where you'd have to be pretty perverted to think that Marilla and Matthew were having incestuous sex) is not objectionable at all.
I guess my point is that elementary schools are not the grounds to be pressing for social change.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I disagree. I think elementary schools are exactly the grounds to be pressing for social change, because when children are in elementary school they have yet to cement what they know about the world. When people wanted to "reprogram" the violent racism that existed in the south, it's no accident that the issue that brought the whole mess to a head was the segregation of schools. If you try to change someone's mind to fight prejudice once they've reached adulthood, you may as well try to climb Mount Everest in a pair of house slippers. Now, I'm certainly not advocating gay porn distributed to first graders here, but relationships are a lot more than sex. Children are taught a great deal about heterosexual relationships through media in schools, whether it be reading books that contain married couples with children, or those inane little social studies lessons. My point is, people are afraid of what they do not know. If you keep them ignorant of something, they will continue to resist it based only on its difference. Books and stories hold the norms and mores of our culture in them. Like it or not, homosexuality isn't going away, and keeping people ignorant of it is only going to increase hostility toward gays.
As far as public libraries, I think everybody agrees that that is sufficiently ridiculous as to need no further comment.
Posts: 894 | Registered: Apr 2000
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But she just said, specifically, that she had no problem with books depicting couples of either sex. It's the depiction of sexual intimacy that was the problem, or at least that's how I read it.
Jenniwren - What about books where same-sex couples are not obviously intimate, but are acting as parents?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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demosthenes, you, in a nutshell, have expressed precisely the thing that many (dare I say, most?) parents fear. What right has the government to promote a debatable value contrary to my family's moral beliefs to my children who don't know any better and trust adults to be wise instructors? If they cannot promote religion, they cannot promote sexual practices either. To do so deliberately and with corporate intention is a violation of the public trust.
Elementary schools are NOT the battleground for social change.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I disagree. I think elementary schools are exactly the grounds to be pressing for social change, because when children are in elementary school they have yet to cement what they know about the world.
That's the exact same reasoning being used by the sponsor of this bill.
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Chris, if it was two adults raising one child in one household and if it was clear that there was no sexual bond intimated, I might have a personal problem with it, but not enough to be really object on a social level.
When I was a kid, my dad had a secretary who was raising two sons. She had a female roommate who acted as co-parent. I don't know if they were a lesbian couple, and it never occurred to me to wonder until I was an adult. I don't know if they shared a bedroom. It didn't matter. Those two boys had one Mom, but they also had Chris who lived with them.
I think it's pushing it a bit to put a book in the library called "Cutter and Rabbit Have Two Mommies", largely because it is clearly a push for acceptance of a homosexual partnership raising two children. Mommy is a very powerful word. A book called "Cutter and Rabbit's Family" where there is one Mom and a female person in the home named Chris isn't nearly a problem.
The point here is that there is a general push for social change, namely the common acceptance of homosexual relationships. I object to this push occurring in elementary schools where the audience cannot possibly make discerning, informed, mature choices of their own. It's shooting fish in a barrel and not only is it not sporting, it's dishonorable.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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ah, yes, this ranks right up there with equivilating the senator with the Nazis. Ever so helpful.
Obviously promoting certain sexual practices to children and allowing black children to go to the same school as whites are the exact same thing. Please.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:What right has the government to promote a debatable value contrary to my family's moral beliefs to my children who don't know any better and trust adults to be wise instructors?
...and here is the main reason for the growing ranks of homeschooled children in this nation. No one really can agree upon a common "moral belief" system in this nation. While some consider homosexual relationships a "debatable value" many do not. I consider war to be a "debatable value" but how much of our history texts are filled with it? Some find organized religion of debatable value in this nation so should books that include religious folks be removed? We will be left with no books to read if we take books out that offend someone. The mere presense of a homosexual character in a book doesn't mean the library containing promotes that value. If it does, then my public library promotes Hitler because I can check out "Mein Kampf" there. Or it promotes Communism because Karl Marx has a certain tome to his name there.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Apr 2003
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But, it's not just a sexual practice though. It's more complicated than that. No one is advocating a description of certain *cough* acts, but it would be nice for kids NOT to throw the word "fag" around like it's a dodge ball or something. It's so dehumanizing!
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By that definition, Irami, EVERYTHING is debatable. There isn't a topic in a school library safe from someone having an issue with it.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: I would almost be willing to bet he is just a mouthpiece for a larger coalition of conservatives who will try and force their own views on bookstores and libraries through other means of the bill doesn't pass-- boycotts, letter writing campaigns, protests, lawsuits ect.
So conservatives shouldn't be allowed the same freedoms allowed to others to express their social agenda?
Posts: 295 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I'm with jeniwren on this one - I don't want explicitly sexual books of any nature, whether hetero or homosexual, in an elementary school library.
Public libraries are a different story, obviously. To tell you how serious this is being taken in Alabama - this is the first I've heard of it.
Please, stop with the insulting of southerners in general and Alabamians in particular. It gets old. Every state has its share of religious fanatics, bigots, and just plain idiots.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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It's idiots like that who give us Southerners a bad rap.
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