This artical ran in the Guardian today.
Excerpt:
"In a scene which appears to have been lifted straight out of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a group of Christians in Wisconsin has launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers which they deem to be "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian".
The offending book is Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be-Bop, a young adult novel in which a boy, struggling with his homosexuality, is beaten up by a homophobic gang. The complaint, which according to the American Library Association also demands $120,000 (£72,000) in compensatory damages for being exposed to the book in a display at West Bend Community Memorial Library, was lodged by four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union.
Their suit says that "the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library," and that it contains derogatory language that could "put one's life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike."
Which makes one wonder if the elderly in certain areas of the world have to much time on there hands. I'm all about live and let live...but if you want to start burning books or creative works and get a court approval to do so then I should have the right to burn down something of yours, no? It would only be fair. Wouldn't it.
I'm wondering if their local soup kitchen could use a hand...or if they've thought about who might be taking care of them when they head off to the hospital, coffee shop, Retirement home or car repair shop....lets hope the people taking care of them have more reason and no lighters.
The thing about freedom or free speech is that you have to defend the rights of people who say things you disagree with as much as you do the ones you see eye to eye. But not when it stems from hatred. So what have we learned from the Elders of Wisconsin? That Christianity is about hatred? Burning Books? Witches? I hope not. Good going guys! Keep up the good fight. The rest of us need a good laugh now and again.
Neil Gaiman says it much more eloquently than me.
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