For the past 26 years, the increasingly radical American Library Association (ALA) has celebrated a week dedicated to the myth of book banning and censorship in public libraries. In truth, the books that are supposedly ‘banned’ are readily available for purchase at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.

Ironically, the ALA fails to recognize that public and school libraries across the nation do, in fact, engage in censorship of conservative worldviews and scholarship. For example, why is it that Deerfield High School has over 60 pro-homosexual books on their shelves, but not one book articulating a traditional view of this contentious topic?

TAKE ACTION: Search the database of your local public high school library for evidence of book-banning on the topic of homosexuality.

Following that search, contact us HERE, so that we can compile a list of schools that appear to engage in systematic book-banning. Please provide the following information:

• Name of the high school
• Approximate number of books on the topic (including both fiction and non-fiction)
• Approximate number of books that appear to include both conservative and liberal viewpoints
• Approximate number of books that appear to embody, espouse, or be written from only a liberal perspective
• Approximate number of books that appear to embody, espouse, or be written from only a conservative perspective.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please send IFI’s Division of School Advocacy an email HERE.

Background
Every time a parent musters the courage to question the inclusion of a book in a middle or high school curricula, our perfervid protectors of academic freedom and defenders of diversity start squawking about censorship and book banning. They raise the specter of Fahrenheit 451 in their efforts to scare one segment of the population and humiliate another. What their squawking conceals, however, is a pervasive and near absolute censorship of conservative ideas and scholarship on the subject of homosexuality.

Most parental challenges arise from concern about obscene language, graphic sex, and the promotion of biased, unproven theories on homosexuality. It’s troubling enough that librarians and other academic activists apparently believe that book selection criteria should never include the nature and extent of obscene language or the nature and extent of sexual scenes. After all, rejecting a text because it includes egregiously obscene language or sexual scenes of such graphic nature that in a movie they would necessitate an “R” rating does not constitute the exclusion of ideas. In other words, if a department chooses not to include a novel or play because of language or sex, they are not censoring an exploration of ideas.

What should be troubling to all citizens concerned with freedom is that while academic activists are unwilling to reject a text because of language and sex, they are deeply committed to censoring important ideas. They are unequivocally committed to banning books and all other resources that espouse conservative or traditional views on homosexuality or “transgenderism.” They will not purchase nor will they teach any resources that challenge the current dogmatic orthodoxy on the nature and morality of homosexuality. They censor with carefree abandon all scholarship that presents a dissenting view. All of their commitments to intellectual diversity, academic freedom, and tolerance are as conspicuously absent as the books, articles, essays, and films they ban.

Just this past August, I resigned from my full-time position as a writing tutor in my local public high school’s writing center. This is also the school from which all four of my children graduated. I learned over the years that while our freshman cannot make it through their freshman year without being exposed to resources that seek to normalize homosexuality, our students make it through all four years without ever being exposed to a single resource that articulates conservative or traditional views on homosexuality. No teacher ever brought in a single resource-not an excerpt from a book, not an essay, not an editorial, not a speaker-nothing that presents an opposing viewpoint.

Meanwhile, teachers have brought in articles from popular magazines, taught plays (Heidi Chronicles, The Laramie Project, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes), taught essays, provided panel discussions with gay and transgender students, played games, led activities, mounted theatre productions, arranged field trips (e.g., Anti-Defamation League’s “World of Difference”), and shown films all of which promote one biased view of homosexuality and “transgenderism.” How, pray tell, can students learn to think critically when all they see, hear, and read represents one perspective? This clear, inarguable bias transmogrifies public education into indoctrination. And this indoctrination depends on censorship for its success.

Check for yourself!
Parents, search your local school libraries from your home computer using the following search terms: homosexuality, sexual orientation, gay, lesbian, transgender, gender identity, gender expression, GLBT, and LGBTQ. See what turns up. The last time I checked my public school library, there were approximately seventy-four books, including both fiction and non-fiction, on the topic of sexual orientation. Of those, there were about ten that are used for debate and therefore include both liberal and conservative viewpoints. Of the remaining sixty-plus books, every single one embodies or espouses a liberal viewpoint. There was not one book written by a scholar, essayist, or popular writer that articulates a conservative position. This, in my humble opinion, exposes a deeply troubling commitment to censorship.

If or when you address the troubling imbalance in your curricula and library book collections, you will likely hear the embarrassing and feeble rationalization that I heard from my administration and library staff. They stated that the library uses certain selection “protocols,” explaining that they order books that have been reviewed favorably by certain review journals. I countered that if their review journals are not reviewing any books from conservative scholars or are not reviewing favorably any books by conservative scholars, then they need to move outside their protocols, because relative balance in the book collection is more important than protocols. It would seem that having one book out of sixty-five might be a good start.

Next week is the America Library Association’s “Banned Books Week.” Their website carries this statement:

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met. [Emphasis added.]

Please use this opportunity to make your case that books from a conservative perspective on homosexuality are being banned with troubling regularity from both public school curricula and libraries.

Spread the Word!
Do you have friends or acquaintances who could benefit from IFI’s informational emails? If you do, please forward this IFI email to them and encourage them to join our e-mail list!

It is only because of concerned citizens like you that we are able to continue promoting pro-family values in the Prairie State.

Thank you for helping us to reach more families!