Closed minds versus the West Bend Library Board

Sometimes the stuff you miss is the closest to home, which must be why I only now have heard about a battle in the West Bend, WI library system which has reached near-tornado velocity.

A group calling itself West Bend Citizens For Safe Libraries has been petitioning the board to remove certain books it considers obscene from the young-adult section of the library (including THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER), wanting them to be labeled with a warning and require parental permission. (The main members of this WBCFSL are a married couple but I couldn't verify whether they had kids or if so what ages.) Last week, the library board voted to tell them to jump in a-- oh wait, they just rejected their proposal. This made them very upset.

Then, a group calling themselves the Christian Civil Liberties Union sued the city, the mayor, the library director and board over Francesca Lia Block's BABY BE-BOP. They want the right to destroy (burn, if possible) the library copy of the book, $120,000 ($30k per plaintiff) in damages for having been exposed to it, and the mayor to resign. And while they're at it, they'd like a pony! Only one of the plaintiffs actually lives in West Bend, leading the very witty blogger Sleepless in West Bend to question why they didn't just go after the much larger Milwaukee Public Library, which dares to have multiple copies of BABY BE-BOP.

I don't mean to get up on my soapbox but -- oh, who am I kidding, of course I do. I grew up not too far from West Bend, and while I can't say I understand what these people are doing, I am familiar with the type. Of course, they only want what's best for West Bend, despite representing only a small percentage of its residents. But community standards are not really the issue here.

These people are charging that the books in question are actually dangerous to teenagers (and suggesting that the rest of us shouldn't be reading them either). We're all entitled to our own tastes. But if a book can make you not a Christian, it's your faith you should be questioning, not the library. If a book can make you gay, perhaps you actually weren't straight. (Actually, if a book can make you gay, then judging by the hours I fell asleep re-reading THE SHORT HISTORY OF A PRINCE in high school I should be gay by now.)

To the parents of West Bend and everywhere else: YA is a popular battleground for these because of the imperative to protect our children, but teenagers are questioning their beliefs anyway -- it's what they do. If you only let them read the Bible (or related religious book of choice), they will find something in it to question. You can tell them gays and lesbians can never live happy lives, be successful and fall in love... until they watch "Ellen" at someone else's house and hear Ellen DeGeneres talk about her wife. You can teach them that all sex is unclean except when blessed by the covenant of marriage for the purpose of procreation, but when they turn 18 they can still buy porn.

Why not talk to your kids about what they're reading? Heck, why not read along with them and talk about whether you find it appropriate or not? No one's taking away the right for you to parent -- to screen what your kids read. West Bend Library Parents For Free Speech would never take that right from you. But if you think censorship is the way to protect them, well, good luck censoring the world.