Posted on 06/14/2006 7:56:56 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
By Steve Crampton
AgapePress
June 13, 2006
(AgapePress) -- Laurie Taylor is the mother of two school age children. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Like most parents, she cares about her kids' education. So, when she discovered the school library had a sexually explicit book, It's Perfectly Normal, aimed at elementary age students, she did what any concerned parent would do: she went to the administration and asked that it be removed, along with two other books with similar themes.
At first, school system leaders seemed to agree with Taylor, and placed the books in a "parent library" section with other books geared more to parents than to children. But when Taylor found dozens more books with sexually explicit content, and asked that they not be made available to students without parental approval, the school reneged. It overturned its earlier decision and voted to leave all of the books on the shelves with unrestricted access by the students.
Some of the books include graphic descriptions of incest, homosexuality, masturbation, bestiality, and child molestation. For instance, Push is the story of a young girl who is pregnant with her father's child. The local newspaper, the Northwest Arkansas Times, which opposed the effort to limit access to the book, admitted that it contained "materials that are patently offensive."
Another book is advertised as being "the most controversial young adult novel ever," and describes an adolescent boy's love affair with a teacher, and two teens who become addicted to heroin. Oh, and by the way, the book won an award as "an outstanding book for children."
Yet another book proudly displayed on the Fayetteville library shelves was once featured in Playboy magazine. Its vile and sexually explicit content is interspersed with dialogue such as this: "Just keep asking yourself: 'What would Jesus not do?'"
Once other parents learned what these books contained, many joined with Taylor in asking the school to take action. The public outcry was great. A parents' rights group was formed, "Parents Protecting the Minds of Children," with dozens of parents joining the cause. The local paper wrote that this issue generated more letters to the editor than any issue in recent history. The story of the battle of the books became the paper's story of the year for 2005.
But Fayetteville is a college town, and liberals turned out in droves to cry "censorship" and shout down Laurie Taylor's courageous efforts to protect the children.
In truth, of course, Taylor never asked that the books be banned altogether, even though that might have been appropriate under the circumstances. All Taylor and the other parents asked for was that the books be placed in a restricted access section, thereby allowing parents to exercise their God-given (and constitutionally protected) rights to oversee the moral upbringing of their children.
Arkansas, like almost every state in America, has laws protecting against the distribution of material harmful to minors. However, also like many states, the Arkansas statutes define "harmful to minors" as material that, taken as a whole, "lacks serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political value for minors." Some of the books to which the Fayetteville parents object have received awards, making it more difficult to demonstrate that they lack serious literary or artistic value.
Moreover, Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe has said that any determination as to whether these books violate the harmful to minors law must be left "for a court or properly instructed jury."
The Fayetteville librarians, in accordance with the principles of the American Library Association, testified that they believed in "intellectual freedom" for all students. This sounds very noble on the surface, but what it means in practice is that the librarians do everything possible to obscure the reading habits of students -- who are required by law to attend school -- from any attempt by parents to learn what their children are reading. This is done by virtue of a computerized system for tracking books in circulation that automatically erases all data concerning who checked out what books immediately upon the books being returned to the library. Unless a parent actually finds her child reading an objectionable book, that parent has no way of discovering what the child has been reading.
Not Only in Arkansas
Similar battles are erupting elsewhere in the U.S. In Maine, for example, Orono High School has reaffirmed its commitment to allow the use of the sexually explicit book, Girl Interrupted, as part of the ninth-grade English curriculum.
The novel, written by Susanna Kaysen, is not fit reading for high school students, argued many parents and local residents. "It's a book about an 18-year-old who ends up in a mental asylum and has a number of conversations with mentally disturbed people -- conversations of the most graphic sort, especially sexually," said Michael Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine. "The f-word [appears] 30 times on one page, and this is being given to freshmen in high school as literature. It's absolutely horrifying."
In Overland Park, Kansas, parents are organizing to protest the Blue Valley School District's inclusion in its curriculum of numerous books containing explicit material, according to WorldNetDaily. One parent, Janet Harmon, objected to a book her freshman son was reading, which contained "references to oral sex and homosexuality," she said.
The AFA Center for Law & Policy has agreed to represent Taylor and other Fayetteville parents in a federal lawsuit seeking to protect their constitutional rights to oversee the education of their children.
But it won't be easy. A federal judge in Fayettteville has recently ruled in a similar case that restricting access of library books only to students who have obtained parental permission infringes upon the First Amendment rights of the students.
This adverse ruling means that in all likelihood, in order to prevail in this matter, the case will have to be taken all the way to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- and perhaps to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Websites Provide Help for Parents Dealing with School Libraries
A number of helpful websites have been established for parents and other adults who are concerned about the content of books in their children's school libraries. A few are listed here to help parents get started, but there are a growing number of websites with valuable information. Many of them contain lists of commonly used books and samples of objectionable content, but also ideas for further action if these books are found, and links to other websites. However, visitors to these sites should be cautious, since the content of these books is extremely offensive.
Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools (Overland Park, Kansas)
Parents Against Bad Books in School (Fairfax, Virginia)
What should you do if you find that your school library or your child's reading requirements have begun to include books with explicit content? Parents Against Bad Books in School has some helpful options, including the following questions that a parent can ask a principal or school administrator:
When did the first amendment become the shelter of last resort for pornographers and cease to be what it was meant to be; a protection of political speech? Instead, political speech is now restricted. It's a perversion of the constitution for this kind of crap to hide behind the 1st.
Hear...Hear! What you said!
So was The Color Purple and The Bluest Eye. Both of which are books of no small literary merit.
I notice that the author of this article goes to great lengths to avoid mentioning quite a few of the disputed titles. I wonder why?
She would have been shocked to read "Huckleberry Finn" it seems.
I wish these energetic parents would turn their attention to dismantling the public school system, instead of trying to micromanage it. Even though my views on sexuality and what children should know and think about it are pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from these parents, I don't want my money confiscated to run schools which educate children against the wishes of their parents, and the last thing I want to end up doing when I have children in school, is to engage in competitive micro-managing with parents who have opposing views.
Throw the public school system in the garbage, and finance education up to age 14 or so with a 100% voucher system (including for homeschooling). After that, most kids would do well to spend a few years in the work world before any more money is spent by anyone on their education, and the few who really will benefit from spending their hormone-controlled teen years in school will be eligible for scholarships from serious schools if their parents can't pay.
I guess she'll go into full-out cardiac arrest if her kids read any Judy Blume books.
So go into the library and destroy the book when no one is looking (after all the parent tried reasonable means first). Problem solved.
I've been saying for years that the only purpose for libraries now is to make porn available to kids.
This is an article, not an encyclopedia of offensive books. Get a life.
Libel?
Slander?
The left is NOT receptive to criticism.
Huckeberry Finn was hardly a book dealing exclusively of sex, let alone homosexual sex, bestiality, or incest.
as such, they are not part of the curriculum - to keep them under the radar from parents.
I had an organization in the early 80's, umbrellered with other organizations statewide and nationwide...debated the athors of one of the worst books on Boston TV...etc etc.
There is an agenda to teach their anti-Christian, anti-moral, anti-family, socialist propaganda to the children from kindergarten up -
you are not going to 'fix' the schools. It is too late.
The only way to save the children is to take your time and money and quietly do home schooling, or private and/or church schools.
Churches are ideally set up with classrooms and facilities to run small schools out of. They can be run by the church or by a private group, arranging to rent the use of the rooms for school hours.
Jesus said "Resist not evil" - that always puzzled me. But I have become to realize that if you fight the education dept and what is going on in the schools - you will not only expend your energy, time and money in vain, you give them energy to solidify their position.
You will not change them by direct confrontation. The only way to safeguard your children and your family values is to remove your children from the public schools.
You do not ask for permission - you simply take your child out and arrange for safe schooling.
When enough parents have done this, and the per head money the public schools get in federal monies drops off - - there will come a day when they will go bankrupt and belly-up and/or drop the anti-family, child abuse materials/lessons and listen to the parents.
Get the kids into home schooling or small, private/church neighborhood schools...this is the only way parents can maintain oversight.
Regionalization was designed - make no mistake about it - not to save money (for it doesn't) but to distance the parents - to push them aside as much as possible.
So, don't "resist" fight the public schools - you will spend your energy without making them change. They will take that energy and use it against you to solidify their stances and control over what they will shove down your children's throats.
Again, take your time and energy and provide a safer place for your child's schooling. An additional bonus will be that your child's schooling hours will be spent on the BASICS - and they will be leaps and bounds ahead academically, while not being exposed to anti-family, anti-moral, anti-Christian propaganda.
It's their God-given right. It's your God-given responsibility.
I'm a little surprised that this would be occuring in NW Arkansas. I grew up there and it's VERY conservative and VERY Christian. However, Fayetteville is a university town and full of liberals I'm sure.
This is just another reason I will be homeschooling and escorting my child to the library. I currently live in the Portland, OR area (one of the homosexual meccas) and I guess I should investigate the children's section of the library. I won't be shocked by what I find.
UGH, i had a simular experience looking for books.
i honestly thought it would be easy to find a book, geared to a 13 year old boy (intesting, witty etc) on sex (abstinence)etc. Boy was i in for RUDE awakening.
I could not find a single book that did not either include something about "gay is normal" "go ahead and try it, its okay", nothing and i mean NOTHING on abstinence (not even in the "christian section")
the worst was a few books had chapters on how to masterbate and that its okay to do this alone, or "in groups" EWWW!!
how far weve come since i was kid:(
if anyone on this forum knows of a good book, please let me know. i gave up in total discust.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.