2004-12-02
CENSORSHIP
Keep Yer Queer Books Out of My State! | Alabama legislator, Rep. Gerald Allen [R] Cottondale, wants to ban books that talk about gay people If passed, the ban would spare Alabamans such offensive travesties such as this as well as upsetting images as seen here | The Alabama Birmingham News reports:
Keep Yer Queer Books Out of My State! | Alabama legislator, Rep. Gerald Allen [R] Cottondale, wants to ban books that talk about gay people If passed, the ban would spare Alabamans such offensive travesties such as this as well as upsetting images as seen here | The Alabama Birmingham News reports:KIM CHANDLER News staff writer
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.
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."
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.
Other legislation that Allen has promoted or worked at getting passed include limiting increases on property tax appraisals, banning same-sex marriage, using back-door language [that's deceptive, folks] to push creationism in public schools while forcing out other scientific concepts, protecting sports officials from assault [for when soccer moms go postal], and requiring trucks to travel in middle lanes on highways | Rep. Allen has also been helpful providing homemade biscuits to a breakfast of Alabama legislators and poultry industry lobbyists |
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