West Bend, Wisc. goes ’round the bend on censorship

Now, if we were talking about the trauma inflicted by people talking too loudly on their cell phones on the bus, the "burning shit up" treatment might be one I'd be behind. Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ender/517900257/

Thanks to blog reader (and off-blog friend, game-night hosting and chicken-raising extraordinaire) Kristy for pointing me to this article on a battle to remove “pornographic” (largely, LGBT-positive) books from the public library’s YA section.

Apparently learning from the U.S. corporate press’s working definition of “balance” (see Glenn Greenwald making this point on torture), the original couple calling for censorship is also claiming that the library needs to at least stock some materials by “ex-gays” in the YA section.

The efforts of the censors have now inspired a separate group of old men in Milwaukee to file a lawsuit calling for the books to be (what else?) burned. I mean, you have to feel sympathy for these guys, as evidently their “mental and emotional well-being” has been harmed by the books being stocked in a place where teenagers can find them. Insert your own joke about these dudes’ mental and emotional well-being here: ____________________.

Here’s me raising my glass to the West Bend librarians for standing their ground, and to West Bend citizen and mom Maria Hanahan, organizing the campaign against the censors. We can only hope that the publicity helps some of the books in question… much as I personally purchased GEOGRAPHY CLUB this morning in solidarity with its earlier censorship fight in one of my state’s libraries (and because I tend to trust Jennifer Hubbard‘s recommendations).