West Bend, Wisconsin certainly has something to talk about tonight. There is a gang of real-life book burners roving the city.
The twist? These book burners don't just want to burn the book. They want to burn one specific copy of the book, the one sitting on the library's shelves.
So they are sueing the city for the right to "burn or destroy by another means" the offending title.
Robert C. Braun of the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) distributed at the meeting copies of a claim for damages he and three other plaintiffs filed April 28 with the city; the complainants seek the right to publicly burn or destroy by another means the library’s copy of Baby Be-Bop.
This meeting took place on June 2nd, following a 4 month fight with two other self-rightous West Bend citizens, Ginny and Jim Maziarka.
The American Library Association has the whole story here.
The four wanna-be book burners are also demanding monetary compensation for their pain.
The claim also demands $120,000 in compensatory damages ($30,000 per 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 didn't even touch the book, let alone read it. Just looking at it was so bad they deserve $30,000 each.
What's so bad about Baby Be-Bop?
There are teh gays for one thing. But it's worse than that:
"explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian," the complaint by Braun, Joseph Kogelmann, Rev. Cleveland Eden, and Robert Brough explains that "the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library," specifically because Baby Be-Bop contains the "n" word and derogatory sexual and political epithets that can incite violence and "put one’s life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike."
Twain just needed the "n-word" to get Huck Finn banned. Rowling got banned for writing about adolescent witches and wizards.
I've never read Baby Be-Bop, but it sounds terrible to me. Surely just burning it isn't enough.
Fortunately, Mr. Braun agrees and is way ahead of me:
the plaintiffs also request West Bend City Attorney Mary Schanning to impanel a grand jury to examine whether the book should be declared obscene and making it available a hate crime.
Hate crimes; I'll bet those West Bend librarians wear sheets and hoods to work.
Thank Gawd the book burners are there to protect the innocent cheese-feed babes of Wisconsin.