(This is an article that Chris published in the college paper either for the East Carolinian or the UTD Mercury in Texas. He wrote many columns for both papers.)
As most of you may or may not know, September 25 through October 2 was banned book week. This is an annual event that works to make people aware of the books that hove been banned or challenged, and bring to light the attempts of certain groups to control what books folks can and cannot read or borrow from libraries.
When I read about this I was absolutely floored. There are actual groups out there that are trying to get books banned. I asked myself if this could be real. So I did a little digging and hit the Internet and what I found was amazing-there are dozens of groups out there wanting to ban thousands of books!
Books that you and I would never in a million years think of as needing to be banned. Groups like the Family Friendly Libraries Association and the American Family Association and the National Organization for Women are at the forefront of this movement and have support all over the world. Now as college students and future parents you should be scared, really scared. This is mighty dangerous ground these people are stomping on and I had to look into this a bit further.
I looked at the lists of books these psychopaths want banned and read the little captions underneath, which gave explanations of why they should be banned. Here are some of the books these morons want banned: Harry Potter, Canterbury Tales, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Beloved, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, The Bell Jar, The Awakening, James and the Giant Peach, and on and on and on.
Are these people out of their minds!? Look at some of the reasons they wanted books banned: The Autobiography of Malcolm X because "it presents a racist view of white people" and "promotes violence." All of John Grisham's books because of their "'sexually explicit writings and violence." And get this: The Alabama State Text Committee wants The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank banned because it is "a real downer." These people are really screwed up.
These pious, conservative, teetotalers, with nothing better to do than find the non-existent hidden evils in between the lines of some of the greatest works of literature ever written, say they want to protect their children from the horrors of the world and keep traditional family values. What a bunch of garbage. They must think their kids are really stupid. These people are certifiably insane and they should banned.
Now the make up of the vast majority of these idiotic groups are white, middle class, Judeo-Christian women, but there are a good number of people representing groups of all kinds. The ACLU wants books like Tom Sawyer and The adventures of Huckleberry Finn banned because of Huck's recurrent use of the word “nigger" and the way slavery is part of everyday life. (By the way, these people don't seem to eager to mention the passage in the book where Huck, who believes slavery is God's good will, decides to spend eternity in hell rather than turn Jim in.)
Now if these diluted mothers out there had their way we would all be carrying copies of the Bible around and read nothing but books you would find at the gift shop at Heritage USA. So I thought about it: The Bible is not banned, and it's a book, so what's in there that is so pure that it didn't make the list? Why is the Bible not under scrutiny? I, being an atheist, decided to read some of the Bible and see what was in there. I read a few hundred pages and did some research and I must say, I was shocked. The stuff in that book was horrible, Do parents really want their kids to read that trash? Look at a few of the things I found:
Incest: the sexual intercourse of Lot and his two daughters, Genesis 19:30-38
Intramarriage: brother and sister tying the knot, Genesis 20:12
Rape of a half-sister by her own brother: 2 Samuel 13: 1-19
Rape of men by other men: Genesis 19:5
Cutting of sexual organs: Deuteronomy 23: 1
Bestiality: Leviticus 22:24-25
Sodomy and Homosexuality: Judges 19:22-24
Sexual Devices of Pleasure: Jeremiah 3:9
Wanting Abortions: Jeremiah 3:11-16
Racism, slavery and the forbidding of interracial marriages: Genesis 28:1
Sick, Sick Sick! And parents actually send their kids to Bible camp and Sunday school to study this disgusting book. Talk about hypocrisy.
Conservatives and Bible thumpers need to learn that one book does not outweigh the hundreds of thousands that have been written. Why should the B1ble be the standard for which all other books are written? We need to have open minds and have books about everything, no matter how vile and awful they may be. We have to have words written about anything and everything and they should never be banned for any reason.
No book should ever be banned! If you don't like something, don't read it. It's that simple. But how dare you say what I can or cannot read. How dare you take books written in the past and want to ban them because they don't fit your present. We college students need to be very careful of these people doing wrong things for wicked reasons. And if you need someone to lead to the fight to stop these people, come get me, I'll be in my hammock reading Truly Tasteless Jokes.
