Books are dangerous things. For most of the history of writing, relatively few people could read or write. This meant that those who could—or who had authority over those who could—wielded enormous power. Many of the earliest manuscripts were often written to document, glorify, and promote the power and beliefs of political, religious, and economic elites.
In the era before printing each book had to be individually written out by hand, making them rare and expensive to produce or obtain. Printing, of course, made books less expensive and more widely disseminated. As literacy gradually increased, the diversity of books began to be seen as a threat to wealthy and established elites and institutions.
For monotheistic religions such as Christianity, books describing other religions are often seen as dangerous works of Satan which will lead to apostasy (the denying of the validity of the Christian worldview). Thus, when the Spanish conquered the Mesoamerican kingdoms, one of their first acts was to burn the books found in the Mayan and Aztec libraries. In twenty-first century American libraries, books about other religions--particularly Islam, Wicca, and some of the indigenous religions of Africa and the Americas--are still challenged and sometimes restricted or removed from the shelves.
Among the monotheistic religions, morality, or rather the rules governing moral behavior, have been dictated by a deity to selected prophets or religious leaders. Books which describe morality contrary to these rules are declared to be immoral and obscene. Such books, according to some religious followers, should not be available to readers and should not be allowed in libraries.
One of the areas that Christian censors are obsessed with is sex, including both the sex acts and the concepts of gender. Putting this into a historical perspective, Clifford Bishop, in his book Sex and Spirit, writes:
“Much of what the Western world considers to be sinful has little to do with religious scripture. The catalogue of sexual sins was largely invented by a small number of men living through the last years of the Roman Empire (c.4th-5th centuries AD)—the Fathers of the Church. In order to subdue their sensual desires, they turned to asceticism and celibacy, validating such practices with theological arguments, which were subsequently disseminated and enforced by an ever more powerful Church.”
In 1494, a Papal Bull—a pronouncement by the Catholic Pope—associated birth control with witchcraft. Catholics, therefore, are instructed not to use birth control.
Humans throughout the world have been using various forms of birth control, including abortion, for thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands--of years. As Christian European societies started producing books, information about birth control was not included, even in medical books. When the first books mentioning birth control were published in the nineteenth century, the authors and sellers faced fines and imprisonment because communicating such information was illegal.
Even today, two centuries later, many Christians feel that the only acceptable goal of sex is procreation, and that contraception is almost as sinful as murder. For them, books and other materials which describe sex as pleasurable, as having some goal other than procreation, and books providing information about contraception should not be published, sold, or made available in libraries. Under the guise of “protecting the children” they demand that books containing references to sex be removed from libraries.
Libraries
While printing created more and relatively cheaper books, in the American colonies in the 1700s books were still expensive and rare. In 1731, Benjamin Franklin brought the idea of a membership library to the colonies. Franklin was a member of a discussion group called The Junto which gathered to discuss “queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy.” The members of the group owned only a few books and were looking for ways to obtain new ideas for their discussion. Using money provided collectively by its members, the new membership library, known as the Library Company, purchased books from England on a broad range of subjects. Library members could access these books. Non-members could also access the books, but they had to put up collateral to cover the cost of the books.
In 1790, Benjamin Franklin was instrumental in the establishment of the first public lending library in the United States when he donated a collection of books to the town of Franklin, Massachusetts. These books were freely available to town members.
The boom in public libraries in the United States really began after the Civil War. These public libraries were tax-supported rather than operating under a subscription model. The public libraries focused on serving the needs of all, they were open to all and they did not charge fees for their services.
In 1876, 103 librarians—90 men and 13 women—founded the American Library Association (ALA).
By 1920, there were 3,500 public libraries in the United States with about half of these libraries constructed with donations from Andrew Carnegie.
It should be noted that there are many kinds of libraries, such as the community public libraries encouraged by Carnegie, school libraries, university and college libraries, research libraries, specialty libraries, and so on. While many libraries are reluctant to have collections which might be deemed “anti-religious”—usually books about atheism, agnosticism, and freethought—there are some libraries with extensive collections of these materials, such as the Library of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Library of the American Humanist Association.
Censorship, Banned, and Restricted Books
While the popular mythology is that the English-speaking colonists came to the Americas seeking religious freedom, the fact is that they sought to maintain only their religious freedom while denying it to all others, such as American Indians and Catholics. Consequently, libraries have often been the focus of the anger, hatred, fear, and ignorance of those who feel that books about other religions, other histories, other genders, and other peoples are dangerous and should not be allowed in public libraries. These people have advocated censorship, book burnings, and laws criminalizing certain books and the libraries that hold them. In an article in the Australian Library Journal, Kim Moody writes:
“Censorship encompasses those actions which significantly restrict free access to information.”
The American Library Association (ALA), on the other hand, has advocated the revolutionary idea that books and other library materials should be provided for all people and not be excluded because of origin, background, or views of those who write them. According to the ALA Library Bill of Rights:
“Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.”
According to the ALA:
“Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
At the present time both public libraries and school libraries are under attack because they contain books which describe lifestyles, religions, and philosophies which are deemed dangerous for children because they do not conform to the dogmatic indoctrination which some Christians feel should be mandatory for all children. Some of the books which have been challenged on the basis of religious content include:
George by Alex Gino
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
While children seem to have an innate curiosity about the world, those seeking to limit the books available to children would prefer to stifle this curiosity and restrict children to a narrow worldview that is blind to much of reality, particularly as it relates to sex, gender, race, religion, and history.
Libraries and Religious Freedom
Ideally, libraries should be bastions of religious freedom (and freedom from religion), housing books and other materials covering a wide range of religious topics. While librarians are generally committed to the idea of free access to information, certain materials which are believed to be contrary to community religious beliefs are sometimes unavailable because of pressure from both outside and inside the library.
One of the censorship pressures on community public libraries centers around the concept of a “community standard” which can be used to reduce the library collection down exclusively to items which could not possibly offend anyone. Kim Moody writes:
“This issue commonly arises in the US where items on topics such as evolution and sex are frequently the subject of debate.”
In citing vague “community standards” a vocal minority of religious zealots can attempt to restrict any information that conflicts with their worldview.
One example of covert, and often unconscious, restriction of information can be seen in materials relating to atheism, agnosticism, and freethought which are often misfiled by librarians. In his entry on library collections in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Timothy Binga writes:
“This give libraries that hold them a false impression that they receive little usage; the books are not being used because patrons and researchers cannot find them while browsing library shelves. This causes those works to be prematurely deaccessioned. Believing that no one is interested in these materials, librarians give over the shelf space to other works that might be better utilized.”
Many community libraries are governed by a community board and when these boards are controlled by people who are pro-censorship, the libraries are ordered to remove or restrict certain materials. Since this form of censorship is contrary to ALA policies, these libraries publicly distance themselves from the ALA. One Montana community library, with holdings of 100,000 materials, declared that ALA guidelines were not suitable for their community. Board members also complained that the library actually contained books about Wicca which needed to be removed.
In the twenty-first century, libraries are not just about books, but also about internet access. In 2002, the ALA and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against the United States over the Children’s Internet Protection Act which required libraries to prevent children from accessing certain materials considered harmful for minors. While the federal district court found the act to be unconstitutional, the law was upheld by the Supreme Court.
In conjunction with national and local events, libraries often contain displays of materials relating to these events. One of these events is Banned Books Week which was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. During this time, many libraries showcase banned books with displays and events. Banned Books Week is regularly challenged by Focus on the Family, a right-wing Christian organization which claims that libraries’ policies are anti-family. The concept of “family” from their viewpoint excludes the families of same-sex partners and the families of certain ethnic, religious, and racial groups.
Libraries and the materials they contain have always been under attack by bullies who want to restrict information about the world to their own worldview. These bullies seem to be afraid of a diversity of ideas and worldviews about religion, race, gender, sex, and ethnicity. If all parents—not just “Christian” parents, but Muslim parents, atheist parents, Hindu parents, Wiccan parents, and so on—were allowed to remove works from school libraries simply because they didn’t conform to or reinforce their religious beliefs, the shelves in these libraries would be bare. If public community libraries were to remove or restrict materials because they might offend someone, they would contain few, if any, books. While the vocal bullies seeking to restrict certain materials often cite “community standards” as their reason, they are blissfully ignorant of their own communities in which people from other religions, other ethnic and racial groups, and other sexual orientations not only reside but also have rights. There are some people who feel that public and school libraries should be open to all users except, of course, the censors.
Religion 101
In this series, the concept of religion is not confined to the Abrahamic religions or to definitions of religion modeled after European concepts. More from this series:
Religion 101: Are Spirituality and Religion the Same Thing?
Religion 101: Religious Imperialism
Religion 101: Religion and Patriarchy
Religion 101: Revealed Religions
Religion 101: Secularism
Religion 101: Religious Freethought in the Americas
Religion 101: Freethought and women's rights
Religion 102: Agnosticism