How does a prohibition on public funding get twisted into a "ban"?
Posted on 12/01/2004 3:48:43 PM PST by pete anderson
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.
Allen said no state funds should be used to pay for materials that foster homosexuality. He said that would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters. While that would ban books like "Heather has Two Mommies," it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as "The Color Purple," "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Brideshead Revisted."
The bill also would ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama. Allen said that meant books with heterosexual couples committing those acts likely would be banned, too.
His bill also would prohibit a teacher from handing out materials or bringing in a classroom speaker who suggested homosexuality was OK, he said.
Allen has sponsored legislation to make a gay marriage ban part of the Alabama Constitution, but it was not approved by the Legislature.
Ken Baker, a board member of Equality Alabama, a gay rights organization, said Allen was "attempting to become the George Wallace of homosexuality."
Aside from the moral debates, the bill could be problematic for library collections, said Jaunita Owes, director of the Montgomery City-County Library, which is a few blocks from the Alabama Capitol.
"Half the books in the library could end up being banned. It's all based on how one interprets the material," Owes said.
E-mail: kchandler@bhamnews.com
bump
If only buggery were a religion...
If only buggery were a religion...
Dumb
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2004-04-03-cheney-book_x.htm
Publisher cancels reissue of racy novel by Lynne Cheney
NEW YORK (AP) — A publisher has canceled plans to reissue a racy novel by Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, after she said the book did not represent her "best work."
Lynne Cheney has been active in publishing over the past couple of years.
By J. Scott Applewhite, AP
New American Library, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), was going to reprint Sisters, a historical romance published in 1981 that includes brothels, attempted rapes and a lesbian love affair.
"We felt interest was growing because it was an election year and we decided it could be a timely book," Liz Perl, executive director of publicity at New American Library, told The Associated Press on Friday.
But according to Cheney's attorney, Robert Barnett, she did not even know about the reissue until receiving calls last week from the media. Barnett then contacted the publisher, which agreed this week to pull the novel.
"I told them that she did not think the book was her best work," said Barnett, who represents numerous political leaders, including former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"If there is a serious demand for this 25-year-old book, I am confident that America's used bookstores will be able to satisfy it," Barnett said.
Perl and Barnett said no legal action was threatened. Although New American Library had the rights to reissue the novel, Perl said, there was no desire "to put out a book that the author was not happy with."
Liberals have often mocked Sisters, noting that Cheney is a longtime conservative and that President Bush supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Her novel was the subject of a recent satirical performance at the New York Theatre Workshop, with actors reading such passages as, "Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl."
Sisters has long been out of print and is not mentioned in Cheney's biography on the White House Web site. In 2001, she told a New York Times reporter that she couldn't even remember the plot.
Cheney has been active in publishing over the past couple of years, releasing the best-selling children's book America: A Patriotic Primer, and sponsoring a literary prize, the James Madison Book Award, for the best history written for young people. She was a featured speaker in February at the Association of American Publishers' annual meeting.
I think she'd help bury it.
How does a prohibition on public funding get twisted into a "ban"?
I don't think this overreaching bill has much chance of passage, although I'm no expert on Alabama politics. I think much more likely it will fail but be used as a prime example of the "intolerance" of the right.
Good idea wrong execution.
This lawmaker should look to put forth a law like that in texas which requires a scientific explanation how homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. This can be limited to the public schools.
This lawmaker would have excellent support to put this in the pre-highschool grades as a first step.
There would be very little opposition by mothers and fathers when it comes to their prepubesent children and this recruiting material.
Sounds to me that the good state rep may be and enviomentalist and does not want to cause pollution by burning the books. Instead, he wants to bury them.
Yep. This guy is an imbecile. The entire court system of Alabama would have to devote 100% of its time for years defining what a "Gay" character was.
Whole proposal is basically a free political ad for the Democratic Party.
That's not the question. The question is How does a prohibition on using public tax funds get twisted in to being a "ban" of something?
Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
a southern man don't need him around anyhow.
-Skynyrd
"Catcher in the Rye"
"Streetcar Named Desire"
"The Great Gatsby"
"The Scarlet Letter"
All of which are classics and would be banned according to this bill.
He wants to pull books off a library shelves and bury them. I believe that is a ban.
I think it's a crazy idea. Doesn't the government down there have better things to worry about?
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