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'Alabama Bill Targets Gay Authors'
- Thread starter Inderjit S
- Start date
Zolipara
New Member
Since this is a political debate i can help but add a bit of religion to it as well.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/12/kansas.evolution.flap/
Its good to see the children get the best possible education.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/12/kansas.evolution.flap/
Its good to see the children get the best possible education.
RitalinKid
New Member
"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."
Yeah, really. We should outlaw books by all minorities. We don't want our children finding out about how people were lynched because of their skin color. We should protect the children from that. While we're at it, we shouldn't talk about WWII or other wars. I'm not sure "the children" should have to hear about how a bunch of 18 year old kids got dropped onto a beach to be massacred because some other people had decided to herd some other people into gas chambers.
Will the ignorance ever end?
Yeah, really. We should outlaw books by all minorities. We don't want our children finding out about how people were lynched because of their skin color. We should protect the children from that. While we're at it, we shouldn't talk about WWII or other wars. I'm not sure "the children" should have to hear about how a bunch of 18 year old kids got dropped onto a beach to be massacred because some other people had decided to herd some other people into gas chambers.
Will the ignorance ever end?
WTF is wrong with people?
Tennessee Williams? You've got to be kidding me? I can't imagine any story more sweetly innocent and tragic than "The Glass Menagerie." It's not like it exudes queerness, which is stupid and irrelevant anyway since being gay isn't catching! "Can't define classics," wow, what an understatement. All of the authors mentioned in the peice wrote classics!
Ooh, I keep writing and erasing, not sure how much or little of what I want to say is political. . . I've already stepped in it here once on an apparently objectionable thread.
It's just so painful to live in the United States right now. This wide, deep split in our culture makes me so sad when I read things like this. I'd love nothing so much as to see a national Rennaisaince, while others apparently want a new Dark Ages with equal fervor.
Every new article or news bit I see like this just makes me feel more hopeless about that gap ever being bridged.
Tennessee Williams? You've got to be kidding me? I can't imagine any story more sweetly innocent and tragic than "The Glass Menagerie." It's not like it exudes queerness, which is stupid and irrelevant anyway since being gay isn't catching! "Can't define classics," wow, what an understatement. All of the authors mentioned in the peice wrote classics!
Ooh, I keep writing and erasing, not sure how much or little of what I want to say is political. . . I've already stepped in it here once on an apparently objectionable thread.
It's just so painful to live in the United States right now. This wide, deep split in our culture makes me so sad when I read things like this. I'd love nothing so much as to see a national Rennaisaince, while others apparently want a new Dark Ages with equal fervor.
Every new article or news bit I see like this just makes me feel more hopeless about that gap ever being bridged.
RitalinKid
New Member
Sometimes it does feel bleak, but remember that even some churches are accepting gay people now. There's always a silver lining, and unfortunately, a lightning bolt to strike those who look for it.Slacker said:
novella
Active Member
It'll never stick. It's just Allen's lame way of cozying up to the Bush Administration.
Similar case shot down as unconstitutional in Texas, from the Southern Poverty Law Center website:
"The bill would prohibit only those materials that promote homosexuality, leaving books that cast homosexuality in a negative light unscathed and on Alabama bookshelves.
The legislator would be wise to take a First Amendment lesson from his fellow politicians at the city council in Wichita Falls, Tex. After a long campaign by special-interest groups, the council passed a resolution giving 300 library-card holders who had signed an anti-gay petition the authority to censor two books, Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate.
Within days of the resolution's passage, the two picture books, which profile families with gay parents, were moved from the youth section of the public library and placed in the adult section.
Library patrons, individually and on behalf of their children, filed suit to enjoin the resolution as a violation of their First Amendment rights. The district court agreed, finding that "[t]he resolution and the book removals burdened fully-protected speech on the basis of content and viewpoint" in violation of the First Amendment. [Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, Texas, 121 f. Supp.2d 530, 547 (n.d. Tex. 2000).]
The law requires that debates on public issues, like homosexuality, must be "uninhibited, robust and wide-open." [New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 u.s. 254, 270 (1964).] And this means folks like Rep. Allen can't fight the so-called "homosexual agenda" by legislating state-sanctioned censorship that drives "positive" gay and lesbian viewpoints from the marketplace of ideas. "
Similar case shot down as unconstitutional in Texas, from the Southern Poverty Law Center website:
"The bill would prohibit only those materials that promote homosexuality, leaving books that cast homosexuality in a negative light unscathed and on Alabama bookshelves.
The legislator would be wise to take a First Amendment lesson from his fellow politicians at the city council in Wichita Falls, Tex. After a long campaign by special-interest groups, the council passed a resolution giving 300 library-card holders who had signed an anti-gay petition the authority to censor two books, Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate.
Within days of the resolution's passage, the two picture books, which profile families with gay parents, were moved from the youth section of the public library and placed in the adult section.
Library patrons, individually and on behalf of their children, filed suit to enjoin the resolution as a violation of their First Amendment rights. The district court agreed, finding that "[t]he resolution and the book removals burdened fully-protected speech on the basis of content and viewpoint" in violation of the First Amendment. [Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, Texas, 121 f. Supp.2d 530, 547 (n.d. Tex. 2000).]
The law requires that debates on public issues, like homosexuality, must be "uninhibited, robust and wide-open." [New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 u.s. 254, 270 (1964).] And this means folks like Rep. Allen can't fight the so-called "homosexual agenda" by legislating state-sanctioned censorship that drives "positive" gay and lesbian viewpoints from the marketplace of ideas. "
RitalinKid
New Member
We have a cultural diversity center at the university in my town, and people have expressed to me their shock that they had materials promoting the acceptance of homosexuality at the center.
bobbyburns
New Member
reminds me of that kids in the hall sketch when scott thompson is talking about how it seems like only fat white men are afraid of gay dudes fucking them.