I Love the Smell of Books Burning In the Morning

It’s not something I thought I would ever see in my lifetime. The picture of rabid, religious zealots circling a bonfire chanting biblical verses as they burn works of literature they deemed “inappropriate” for public view. The sight of books fueling the fire, and their flames fueling the mob’s fury was something I thought was lost to history, or maybe “hoped” is the better term. But there is a book burning brewing in Wisconsin, not in 1952, but right now, in 2009, and it’s as frightening now as ever.
Religious groups have burned books for centuries. It seems every rival sect or religion has burned something of the other religions at one time or another. Muslims burned Jewish works, the Jewish burned Christian books, and Christians burned books that are simply non-Christian. Christians don’t have the monopoly of this practice, although they seemed to perfect it in the 20th century.
In this example of “Christians Gone Wild”, Jim and Ginny Maziarka objected to some of the content in the West Bend public library. They believed that there were books in the young-adult section that were sexually explicit (I think we can all agree that the term “sexually-explicit” is up to interpretation). The books evidently dealt with homosexual content and some inappropriate heterosexual content. They not only asked that the books be moved out of that section, but also asked the library to obtain books that affirmed heterosexuality from authors who consider themselves ex-gays. Yep, you read that right…”ex-gays”. They claimed that it’s the library’s obligation to strike a balance between homosexuality and heterosexuality in its content. I wonder if she would demand such balance if the library offered NO examples of homosexuality. Is it really balance she is seeking? I have my doubts.
It didn’t take long however for the real crazies to get involved. Some group from Milwaukee (called the Christian Civil Liberties Union) came down and began to demand they burn the books. They even suggested that the librarian be “tarred and feathered”. They also filed a lawsuit against the library asking for not only the books to be burned, but are also suing for financial damages because their “mental and emotional well-being was damaged by [the] books at the library”. Actually, I claim that the only book that could have screwed up their mental well-being like that has to be the Bible. That is where it all started to go wrong for these “Huckabees”.
It’s just another example of right-wing Christians that think they are doing you a favor by helping make decisions for you. They don’t think you have the mental capacity (or the proper moral fiber) to make the decisions for yourself, so they are going to make them for you. Are you going to sit back and let them? Tell me….what would you do if this was happening in your local library? How would you react?