There is a little dustup going on in the town of West Bend, Wisconsin. The local bluenoses noticed that there are books that discuss human sexuality in the library — and some of them are even written for teenagers! Teenagers, of course, never think about sex and have no interest in the subject unless some vile prurient publication stirs them up, so the crusaders for purity are stridently demanding that these books be removed from view.
One particular target of their fury is a book by Francesca Lia Block, Baby Be-Bop, which commits the sin of writing positively about young gay men and negatively about gay bashing. A group called the Christian Civil Liberties Union has filed suit over the book, since it exists at the library, and they don't like it.
One would think that you couldn't use the term "Civil Liberties" in conjunction with "Christian", but it seems they feel their "liberties" are in danger. Not only that, but they are filing suit and claim that their "emotional" and "mental well-being" were damaged.
The Milwaukee branch of the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) has filed a legal claim that says a book that is available in the West Bend Community Memorial Library is offensive.
Robert C. Braun of West Allis, Joseph Kogelmann of Milwaukee, Robert Brough of West Bend and the Rev. Cleveland Eden of Milwaukee, representing the Milwaukeebased group, filed the claim with the city of West Bend clerk's office.
Named in the claim are the city of West Bend, Mayor Kristine Deiss, the West Bend Library Board and Library Director Michael Tyree. The group is seeking $30,000 per plaintiff, Deiss’ resignation and a racist book be removed and publicly burned or destroyed as a deterrent to repeating the offensive conduct, the claim states.
I find it hard to believe that a group of "elderly Christians" were at the library one day and suddenly fell over in a seizure brought on by a book simply sitting on the shelf.
Did they read it? Was it encoded with some hidden message that, when read, caused the reader to have this sudden urge to kill?
And what of all the other books in the library that discuss sex? Why they don't count. It's perfectly alright to have books - some written by " respectiblepeople" - that talk about "straight sex".
The logic, or lack thereof, of this group decrying the use of taxpayer money for this book baffling. Where do they think they are going to get their $30K for each "victim".
( h/t to Yellow Dog )
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