The Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) has selected a curious place to put together an old-fashioned book burning: a court. In West Bend, Wisconsin, Christians are upset over a book called Baby Be-Bop and other books contained in the “Young Adult” material that they say are sexually explicit and inappropriate. In a 9-0 vote, the library trustees refused their demands to remove or restrict the material at the West Bend Community Memorial Library.
Irate Christian activists Ginny and Jim Maziarka have been fighting for four months to cleanse the library and Robert C. Braun of the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) has distributed copies of a claim for damages he and three other plaintiffs filed April 28 with the city. They are demanding $120,000 in compensatory damages for each plaintiff for being exposed to the book in a library display, and the resignation of West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss for “allow[ing] this book to be viewed by the public.”
They insist that the book by Francesca Lia Block is “explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian” and that “the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library.” They are reportedly seeking the right to publicly burn or destroy by another means the library’s copy of Baby Be-Bop.
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It seems very fashionable to bash Catholics. The Catholic Church is on record to be anti- death penalty. I have noticed that the states with high Catholic populations tend to much more liberal than those where protestants dominate.The peace and social justice movement in the catholic church is also a very positive thing. The Catholic Church has taken a turn to the right which has nearly driven me out, but there are still some good priests and parishes out there.It is very hard to be a Catholic these days.The pope stifles you and your non catholic friends look at you askance.
A little subversion would not be out of place- if everyone in the town that disagreed with them just showed up and threw a bible in the fire I’m sure most of these thought-fascists would have a heart attack and the bible burners would get a little camera time to express their views, whatever they may be.
GWMom,
I could not agree with ya more. The Pro-life/Death Penalty one really gets me. But more that that the book burners, suppressionists have been around a long, long time. From ancient Greece to Sarajevo of recent. Power, is the theme. I do not know if most people are aware the Roman Catholic Church or at least some diocese would not let parishioners read the old testament. I think that this was up and until PiusXII.
The destruction of the Library of Alexandria; the burning of books and burying of scholars under China’s Qin Dynasty; the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish conquistadors and priests; Nazi book burnings which occurred May 10, 1933; and the destruction of the Sarajevo National Library.
Now you wanna talk about a Pope that was well connected and well heeled. His family was almost in control of every aspect of Vatican City. If I am not mistaken he also right up there with being one of the the longest serving Popes.
Where’s right wing Mary to defend the book burners? Or does she agree with the liberals? If so, perhaps she’ll see why people join the ACLU to help protect people’s Constitution rights against such medieval thinking.
Queen writes:
This story is just rich with irony – a ‘civil liberties group” that wants to burn a book! What a hoot!!
well. there are civil liberties and then there are civil liberties.
apparently christian evangelicals have their own definition for that just as they have their own for what constitutes being pro-life while advocating the death penalty.
GWLawSchoolMom;
The good news here is definitely NOT “that with age and experience comes some common sense.” In this case, all the plaintiffs were elderly. Of course they may all be suffering from some senior Christian disease. The good news is that the library trustees have not succumbed to this disease and have voted 9-0 to keep the book in the library and not even restrict who can look at it. And may the mayor prevail as well.
This story is just rich with irony – a ‘civil liberties group” that wants to burn a book! What a hoot!!
Untold accounts of human misery, suffering, and religious bigotry throughout millennia of humankind could have been prevented if every volume of the B-I-B-L-E’s multitudinous manuscripts in all languages had been *burned* to forever discredit the deceptive, fictitious, and disingenuous ‘greatest *Story* ever told.’
GWLSM:
“if these yahoos want to burn the book let them buy a copy from Amazon and burn it on the church lawn either during or following the cross burning.”
*********
LOL & Brava!
this would be hilarious if it wasn’t coming on the heels of the murder of Dr Tiller.
Look. You might be able to get Gone With The Wind published today as it was written in what 1934 and it was as racist a book as I’ve ever read (having re-read it three years ago) and the movie was pretty racist also. I loved it when I was 12 and all I saw was the story of unrequited love and kind of believed that all slaves went to bed with full bellies. but the good news here is that with age and experience comes some common sense.
truly this book and movie make my skin crawl today.
if these yahoos want to burn the book let them buy a copy from Amazon and burn it on the church lawn either during or following the cross burning.
So what’s a little book burning? When they get around to the real Christian stuff like witch dunking, burning heretics at the stake, bootikens, and waterboarding with the knotted cloth down the throat (real waterboarding as the neocon would say), then let me know. Enough of these JV theocrats! We need some real “holy” men to “defend the Faith.”
What a stroke of luck to have one’s book singled out for attack by religious zealots. Career making!
Here.
Next time you feel all twisted up and needing to burn some books, why don’t you just chillax out and play with a puppy. It’ll make you feel better.
http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000086?v=5225680&l=100000085
Christianists fight for their right to burn books! They just keep inching their way towards the Taliban every day, don’t they? It isn’t enough that they have the right not to read a book they don’t like. They want to violate everyone else’s right to read it as well.
And what’s the deal with the Christian Civil Liberties Union? Do christians have different liberties than Americans? How can they justify a right to burn books they don’t like?
Of course they have every right to burn books that they own. Perhaps every christianist should run out and buy ten or twenty copies of the book and throw them on the fire. That would really teach the author and publisher a lesson!
i get soooo tired of the morality police among us.
Book burning, that most Nazi-like of activities, has all the logic of the War on Drugs. Congratulations! You’ve just sold more copies of that book than you’d be able to burn at one sitting. Prohibition breeds interest, hammerheads. I also invite you to buy as many copies of the book in question to make sure you make a nice big fire for the cameras. Unless you intend to steal them of course. WWJD? After all, a book burner needs to be media savvy. Seriously, get a standard shipping container full of them to light up. I’m sure Amazon could arrange that for you. Ms. Block and her agent are just thrilled. Turning the other cheek is a lesson about tolerance and compassion, something the actions of the Maziarka’s and the CCLU suggest they lack in abundance. At the same time, they’ve managed to once again show that the core of Christ’s teachings was “Love thy brother, except those whom shall pisseth you off or confuseth thine mind of whom which ye may symbolically or literally immolate in My Father’s Name.” I’ve read a few versions of the Bible and despite keeping an eye out for such oddities as suggesting fire as a dispute resolution mechanism or chocolate bunnies yet manage to emerge from the texts each time free of such arcane knowledge.
So in one fell swoop you clowns have managed to be both shockingly unchrist-like in your behavior, wildly ineffective in suppressing the material you disagree with and all the while creating a media image for yourselves as unreasonable zealots who when threatened by an idea think with their little match head – a little passive-aggressive threat and hints at violence to come if you and YOUR GOD don’t get your way in intimidating those whom YOU HUMANS deem objectionable into submission to YOUR HUMAN WILL AND CLAIMS OF DIVINE PREFERENCE. So what’s next for those who dare to criticize you and your myopic mean spirited little version of the Sky Father? Thumb screws? Camps? Ovens?
That’s a trifecta in the race to just not understanding. Anti-enlightened. So I invite the Maziarka’s and their CCLU mutants to get a pile big enough to light a bon fire visible from orbit. Ya’ll best be goosestepping on over to the Fire Marshall’s office for some permits. You wouldn’t want to be breaking any laws while providing the rest of a lesson albeit a negative one built on cruel and humorous irony that can be couched as both satire and cautionary.
I’m always amused at folks that claim their right to violate someone else’s rights are being violated
probably, by now, some enterprising righties have purchased many of these books so these folks can have a good old fashioned book burning, to be shown live on Fox no doubt
Hell, the collected works of Ann Coulter tick me off to no end, but I’m not going to raise hell over their presence in my local library, It strikes me that these folks really have nothing better to do with their lives.
There is nothing damaging about having books you consider vulgar at a library, if you don’t like the book, don’t read it.
Some folks claiming that they have been damaged emotionally by a book is like saying that I am lustful for a naked aborigine. Most of ain’t ever seen the naked aborigine or read the book. Not to say that they ain’t already damaged to begin with.
I saw on TV this morning someones response to Pat Robertsons statement about sex with a duck. It is called the Duck or Love Duck or something like that.
Thought it was pretty clever.
Have they actually read the book, and if so did it evoke an emotional response? Isn’t that the purpose of art?
How are they with ‘Fahrenheit 451’? Is it alright that book is available at the library?
I love that they are suing for emotional damage.
Hilarious!