Ensuring that censorship backfires

"Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second."  - Phil Kerby

Sometimes beating back the right-wing activists just isn't enough, and you have to administer a good public humiliation. That's what a local gay-rights group did for a couple of would-be book-banners. The Morning Call helped to deliver the smackdown in its Sunday edition:

A controversial gay-themed children's book which just weeks ago was unavailable at most local public libraries is now more widely accessible after a couple's attempt to have the book removed from the Lower Macungie Library backfired.

Following news coverage of the library's denial of the request, a local gay activist group sent it a $50 donation and purchased the controversial book ''King & King'' for four area public libraries that didn't carry it. At least three of the libraries in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton have accepted the book into their circulations following reviews...

News coverage of the issue also led Doylestown's public library to order ''King & King.''

"King & King" tells of a prince who, defying his mother's wish that he marry a princess, instead marries her brother. The newspaper had a report last November (archived here) about the couple's obsessive campaign to keep this book out of other people's hands:

The book will remain on the shelf despite the Issas' complaints and about 40 signatures they've gathered from residents who agree. The library's board of directors on Thursday denied the couple's request for the second time and the township supervisors, who appoint the library directors, have chosen not to overrule the decision.

''I just want kids to enjoy their innocence and their time of growing up,'' Jeff Issa said, explaining his persistence. ''Let them be kids ... and not worry about homosexuality, race, religion. Just let them live freely as kids.''...

Kathee Rhode, the library's director, said censoring books based on subject matter is the duty of parents, not the library. She said the library strives to provide material representing a spectrum of views and ways of life.

''That's what a public library does, and you make the choice,'' Rhode said. ''We certainly want parents to make that decision for their children -- not one parent making that decision for all children.''

So how did the Issas feel when the library and town council both told them to take a hike, when gay activists turned the tables by ensuring that further copies of the book were made available in area libraries, and when the Morning Call returned to chronicle the sorry collapse of their crusade?

Somewhat ironically, that information is not available.

The Issas declined to comment for this story.

This particular battle was ridiculously one-sided, though the running war to ban books is no joke. In recent years, George W. Bush (that fellow married to the former librarian) has even aligned himself with one of the nation's foremost book-banners, Gerald Allen. This seedy character is well described in a report from 2004:

Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."

Bush is interested in Allen's opinions because Allen is an elected Republican representative in the Alabama state legislature. He is Bush's base. Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go.

Literature on homosexual themes has been subject to censorship for a long time. But in recent years it has consistently been the leading edge of the book-banning crusade, that perennial attack on freedom of expression led (as always) by authoritarian types. Thus as improbable as it may seem, the children's book "King & King" has been at the center of controversy from one end of America to the other. In Oklahoma, for example, its availability in libraries was seen as such a crisis in 2005 that state lawmakers passed a resolution calling on librarians to "confine homosexually themed books and other age-inappropriate material to areas exclusively for adult access and distribution."

It also states that a child’s development "should be at the discretion of a child’s parents free from interference from the distribution of inappropriate publicly cataloged materials" and that public libraries should not expose children to material "that may be deemed harmful and inappropriate."

The resolution declares that "materials concerning human sexuality and those of an arguably prurient nature" should not be "readily available for consumption by children, nor should the distribution of such materials to children be supported by public finance."

Sara Fine's article "How the mind of the censor works" is especially revealing in regard to the censors' obsession with this up-beat little children's book:

Personality theory and social psychology research suggest that when we encounter someone whose arguments for censorship are dogmatic and simplistic, we are probably dealing with an authoritarian personality who is reacting to something he/she fears. Authoritarian personalities are characterized by a strong desire to exert power, an equally strong need to submit to power (often the power of a social, political or religious group), resentment of weakness, fear of ambiguous situations, and an unusual fascination with sex. Authoritarian personalities are highly moralistic, exhibiting a "conventional" level of morality on Kohlberg's scale of moral development (minor rules and social respectability are placed above principles such as equality, freedom of expression, and human rights). Any information which is contrary to their (or their group's) beliefs, stereotypes and rationalizations is perceived as a threat. The theory of cognitive dissonance tells us that authoritarian personalities will defend their choices most strongly in ambiguous situations, since they want to erase the inner conflict created by the recognition of two positive but conflicting ideals (such as freedom of speech vs. the preservation of family morals). Censorship is more strongly motivated by the fear of losing control over children than a concern for their moral development, and books which portray young people who defy parental values may especially outrage authoritarian personalities.

The mindset of the censor is one I can scarcely comprehend. As a child I had the run of a house full of books and like this librarian...

I was allowed to read what I liked. It helped me to learn who I was and where I fit into the world.

As a model for socializing other people's children, censorship is incalculably and disastrously misguided.