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Maine Parents, Advocates Upset Over Explicit Novel Approved for High Schoolers
Agape Press ^ | 2/20/06 | Jim Brown

Posted on 02/20/2006 5:01:05 PM PST by wagglebee

(AgapePress) - A school district in Maine has reaffirmed its reinstatement of a sexually explicit book several parents want removed from the local high school's curriculum. The Orono School Committee recently voted to retain the controversial novel Girl Interrupted in the ninth grade English literature class at Orono High School.

Girl Interrupted, a novel written by Susanna Kaysen, was affirmed for use in the high school curriculum over the objections of parents and local residents who take exception to the profuse profanity and sexual content in the book. Michael Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCLM), says this graphic work of fiction has no place in schools where impressionable young people will be exposed to it.

"It's a book about an 18-year-old," Heath explains, "who ends up in a mental asylum and has a number of conversations with mentally disturbed people -- conversations of the most graphic sort, especially sexual. The f-word [appears] 30 times in one page, and this is being given to freshmen in high school as literature. It's absolutely horrifying."

School board members argue that using Girl Interrupted in the classroom honors free speech and that prohibiting it would amount to unconstitutional censorship. However, the CCLM spokesman feels the board members are making a spurious claim when they cite First Amendment freedom as a justification for obscenity.

The Civic League's representative at the board's meeting contested that idea from the floor, Heath points out. "When one of the school board members said to not have the book in the curriculum would be the practice of censorship," he notes, "our representative objected and said, 'Look, you censor Playboy. You don't allow people to read Playboy in the schools, so that's a non-issue. You're lying.'"

The Orono school board has the responsibility to make decisions about content and does in fact make such decisions all the time, Heath contends. He feels parents and pro-family citizens in the Maine community have every right to be outraged over the school committee's decision to retain a sexually explicit novel in Orono High School's ninth-grade English literature classes.



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Maine
KEYWORDS: englisheducation; girlinterrupted; governmentschools; highschools; hseducation; leftismoncampus; moralabsolutes; reasontohomeschool
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To: durasell

Please, go easy on the Hemingway. The guy never wrote a complex sentence. Not once.

Ugh.


341 posted on 02/21/2006 6:21:00 AM PST by Xenalyte (Can you count, suckas? I say the future is ours . . . if you can count.)
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To: Skooz

:)


342 posted on 02/21/2006 6:24:52 AM PST by mlc9852
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To: durasell

"Do you have kids?"

"Are kids a requirement these days?"

If you do have kids and don't mind them reading books that are sexually explicit, that is your business and yours alone. I do think teachers should be required to inform parents of what books are assigned for reading. Our kids, contrary to what the left believes, still belong to their parents!


343 posted on 02/21/2006 6:26:53 AM PST by mlc9852
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To: AnAmericanMother

Lady Chatterly was a case in the U.K. and the U.S. back in the 1960s. The U.S. trial dealt with the film.


344 posted on 02/21/2006 6:27:24 AM PST by durasell (!)
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To: Xenalyte

Isn't it pretty to think so?


345 posted on 02/21/2006 6:28:36 AM PST by durasell (!)
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To: mlc9852

I entirely agree with you. Kids belong to their parents.

However, do a small group of parents have the right to determine the reading material kids (who no doubt belong to other parents)can and cannot read?

That's the real issue here. If every parent of that 9th grade class stormed the school board meeting rending their clothing and screaming in anguish that their kids were being exposed to sex, then I'd say "Great, replace the book." But when a small group of parents try to impose their personal views on the majority, then I have a problem with that...


346 posted on 02/21/2006 6:34:31 AM PST by durasell (!)
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To: sangrila
There is no faulty logic coming from me.

Upon further review, you are correct. The correct logical conclusion of your statement was that no books should be banned for sexual content because Shakespeare employed sexual content. The logic is actually consistent, not faulty. That you now deny the logical neccessity of the conculsion is fallacy.

My argument: Schools should not ban a book because it contains sexual content.

I agree, to a point. Argument you assigned to me: Schools should not ban a book if it contains sexual content.

Again, that is the consistent logical conclusion of your statement.

But, we are belaboring this point to excess, so if the above is your opinion on the matter, I agree with you, to a certain extent.

BTW, it is OK to admit you made a mistake. No one will think less of you. Really.

347 posted on 02/21/2006 6:37:28 AM PST by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings............Modesty hides my thighs in her wings......)
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To: Xenalyte

Hemingway was brilliant in his simple choice of vocabulary. "He drank the water. It was good."

Now, if you want some complex sentences, try Faulker.


348 posted on 02/21/2006 6:39:13 AM PST by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings............Modesty hides my thighs in her wings......)
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To: durasell

I read about all the Hemingway there is, and I don't recall finding one complex sentence in there.

Face it . . . the guy was a subject-verb writer.


349 posted on 02/21/2006 6:41:00 AM PST by Xenalyte (Can you count, suckas? I say the future is ours . . . if you can count.)
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To: Skooz

Faulkner is the other extreme, which appeals to me not much either.

Mark Twain, now, that guy could write.


350 posted on 02/21/2006 6:41:33 AM PST by Xenalyte (Can you count, suckas? I say the future is ours . . . if you can count.)
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To: Xenalyte

The line was from The Sun Also Rises. It's what Jake says to Lady Ashley...ah, poor Jake.


351 posted on 02/21/2006 6:42:51 AM PST by durasell (!)
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To: durasell

That sounds a little like some of my cowboy novels, love them. But then again it also reminds me when men were not afraid of being men and women didn't hate them because they were men!


352 posted on 02/21/2006 6:45:08 AM PST by red irish (Gods Children in the womb are to be loved too!)
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To: durasell
I am surprised parents would want their 14 year olds reading sexually explicit material, especially when there are many, many books more age-appropriate. But knowing what public schools have become, I am not surprised. I wonder who originally decided this particular book should be required reading for 14 year olds to begin with.
353 posted on 02/21/2006 6:45:37 AM PST by mlc9852
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To: flaglady47

Now that is a good idea.


354 posted on 02/21/2006 6:46:26 AM PST by red irish (Gods Children in the womb are to be loved too!)
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To: flaglady47

Nah. Just go read it to the school board and the county commission.


355 posted on 02/21/2006 6:47:23 AM PST by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: red irish

The cowboy genre is a neglected American art form. Nobody much reads Max Brand (Frederick Faust) much anymore.

Here's a robert service link...his poems are a hoot.

http://www.mochinet.com/poets/service/index.cgi


356 posted on 02/21/2006 6:47:54 AM PST by durasell (!)
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To: mlc9852
I wonder who originally decided this particular book should be required reading for 14 year olds to begin with.

Those who know better than we. Hallowed be their names.

357 posted on 02/21/2006 6:48:20 AM PST by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings............Modesty hides my thighs in her wings......)
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To: durasell

Have you ever read Billy Collins?

Not cowboy stuff, but some of the freshest poetry in print.

His stuff is like a blast of cool air blowing through a stuffy room.


358 posted on 02/21/2006 6:49:50 AM PST by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings............Modesty hides my thighs in her wings......)
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To: mlc9852

The book isn't all that sexually explicit. Mostly it falls into the "chick as victim of an unfair world" genre. A lot of cussing and talking around the sex act.


359 posted on 02/21/2006 6:50:43 AM PST by durasell (!)
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To: Skooz

I'm pretty much set for poets. I keep re-reading the stuff I read 20 years ago. Don't know Collins.


360 posted on 02/21/2006 6:52:06 AM PST by durasell (!)
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