…should try reading books instead of burning them.
A bunch of nutcases Christian group in Wisconsin seeks the right to publicly burn or destroy the West Bend Community Memorial Library’s copy of Francesca Lia Block’s novel Baby BeBop. Y’see, these people claim that seeing that book on display is damaging to their mental and emotional well-being. They think that the book is “explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian,” and therefore they should have the right to burn it. They’re trying to get the book legally declared obscene, so that making it available would be a hate crime.
I’ll allow a minute for this to sink in. I know, I know. It’s some seriously insane bullshit, but I’ll give you a second to try to wrap your brain around the claim that a book sitting in a library is messing up some elderly folks’s heads, and therefore it should be burned.
Okay, I can’t wrap my brain around their logic, either. I really don’t think this desire to ban Baby BeBop has anything to do with the fact that the book contains the N word. See, this book is the story of a gay teenager coming to terms with his homosexuality. It doesn’t condemn homosexuality or make it out to be a deviation. These people want to ban this book because they think that teens should have the gay shamed out of them.
This whole lawsuit is utterly pathetic. I fully support the West Bend librarians in their fight to keep this book and others that the nutcase crew Christian Civil Liberties Union deems evil on the shelves. And so does Francesca Lia Block.
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One gotta admire the cast iron balls these assholes have, crying about their rights while trying to stomp out the rights of others.
Once again DFG, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Extremists are scary no matter what their so-called religious affiliation.
Won’t someone think of the children?!
Once again DFG, you’ve shot yourself in the foot. Francesca is a semi-illiterate whose books, if you can indeed call them books, target society’s morons. She should be banned. Kudos to the groups working to get her out of the libraries and onto the trash heaps…
Nice try, Dale, to use a nasty comment to promote your play. As you can see, I’ve removed your URL. No tacky self promotion for you! I can’t understand why you’d think writing a comment that makes you look like an asshole would make anyone reading this blog want to read your play. Not a good marketing idea.