GordonUnleashed

Alabama Book Burners: The Next Generation

September 13th, 2007 by Steve

When Alabama Republican legislator Gerald Allen wanted to ban all books with gay characters from publicly funded libraries, he suggested that we should “dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them.” Apparently, he feared that suggestions of a book burning would instill images of Fahrenheit 451 or Godwin’s Law.

It seems the newer generation of Alabama moralists who disdain the free expression and exchange of ideas is afraid of the negative implications of a full-scale book burning, too. From DixieDaily, who got it from Thomason Tracts, who got it from the Tuscaloosa News:

[Name of minor intentionally omitted] and her grandmother, Pam Pennington, say the book is too sexually explicit and shouldn’t be on school library bookshelves.

The school library won’t allow her to check out another book until she returns this one, and that’s not going to happen, they said.

“This book is sick,” said Pennington. “I’m 50 years old, and I’ve raised 11 sets of kids and been through many a library, and I’ve never seen a book like this in a school library before.”

The novel, “Sandpiper” by Ellen Wittlinger tells the story of a 15-year-old girl named Sandpiper Hollow Ragsdale, who is on a “sexual power trip and engages in random hookups” for oral sex, according to a review by the School Library Journal. Ragsdale befriends one boy, but then is abused by another. [snip]

“I honestly believe that it should not be at school, because at my school they teach abstinence and no sex before marriage, but then all the book is teaching is how to do those things,” she said.

A question of interest to me is why any public school would be teaching anything about the personal and moral implications of sex. Call me weird, but I’d think instruction in subjects like geography, history and a foreign language or two would be priorities for the often criticized public school systems around the country. Heck, I’d be happy if they could get the “Three Rs” down pat. To be wasting public dollars on something that should be a parental responsibility is egregious. Additionally, many parents have alternate views as to what should be taught. It seems, once again, the the state has usurped a parental right.

Speaking of responsibility (or the lack thereof):

But Pennington and [the student] are standing behind their belief that the book is inappropriate for any school. They said they don’t intend to return the book. Harding faces late fees or a $25 charge to replace the book if it’s not returned by Friday.

“I feel that it is the most mature thing to do, to keep it off the shelves,” she said.

The morality of teenagers engaging in oral sex is certainly open to reasonable debate; there is but one non-debatable term for taking property and intentionally not returning it: theft. Anyone considering the family’s position on the issue moral should consider this simple fact.

In the meantime, if we are going to start burning, burying, or stealing books which depict sex in a non-marital setting, there is indeed a very long list of them to be destroyed — starting with The Bible.

Posted in It's a Southern Thang, Alabama Politics

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