CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – I’m opposed to book banning.
The way Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin have been mischaracterized over decades tells me that people should read them. Huck Finn is a novel of Americana and speaks to equality among the races. It’s out of favor because its author used language that was acceptable then, but not today. Uncle Tom’s Cabin raised America’s conscience about the evils of slavery. Without that book, many northerners would have let the south, and its slaves, go its separate way.
That said, I object to overtly sexualized books being offered to children. Many teen novels today border on erotica. Heather Has Two Mommies would not be my choice for a grade-school reader.
Libraries and library boards, which are often dominated by liberals who brought us drag queen story hour, see nothing wrong with books about drag queen story hour being offered to your kids. There’s even a line of thought where they–the library staff–should be free to offer books to kids even if parents object. That’s simply wrong. A librarian is not a surrogate parent. When I took my kids to the library, I reviewed every book that they checked out.
So here comes a completely reasonable compromise: a rating system for explicit books. Something like a red dot placed on books that deal with sexuality, which some parents might find objectionable. That’s a middle ground. No books would be banned. But neither would the library be a free-for-all for children to navigate on their own. If we can’t settle on obvious and easy compromises, what chance do we have of solving more difficult problems?
Chris Conley
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