Children’s picture book flagged at Alabama library because author’s last name is ‘Gay’

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 645 points – Children’s picture book flagged at Alabama library because author’s last name is ‘Gay’
al.com

Madison County Public Library administrators were asked to go over a list of potentially "sexually explicit" books to be moved from the children's and young adult section to the adult section. The majority of these books were about the LGBTQ community. At least one was added to the list because the author's last name is Gay.

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And as always, the library has a copy of Mein Kampf that no rightwinger has a problem with.

And the Bible. Let's not forget that.

Hey, the Bible is totally child friendly. Like that passage where Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him in order to have his babies.

Or the one that describes how a guy's brother died without having an heir. So the guy got to have sex with his sister-in-law in order to give her a son. Except he pulled out at the last second and "let his seed spill on the ground" and was killed for breaking his word.

Or maybe the passage where Dinah was raped and her rapist wanted to marry her. Dinah's brothers agreed, but only if all the men in that village got circumcised. Then, when all the men were "indisposed," the brothers ran in, killed all the men, and took the women and children captive.

See? So totally child friendly!

"Let the heathens spill theirs on the dusty ground. God shall strike them down for each sperm that can't be found."

  • Book of John ^(Cleese)

Mein Kampf has very interesting parts about reproductivity of animals. Statements such as

"the stork goes to the female stork, field mouse to field mouse, house mouse to house mouse, wolf to wolf, etc..."

are truly remarkable in his incomprehensibly big brain revelations about biology. Then he moves on to explain how the same would apply to humans, completely brushing over the fact that storks and mouse are different kinds and he is too stupid to differentiate between race and kind.

Shut up nerd, save the science for the vivisections!

-- Hitler (probably)

The people.complaining put quotes from it in their newsletters

Fyi since I'm assuming you didn't read the article, the book was just moved out of the Children's section. Obviously a mistake in instance, but it's not being banned. Mein Kampf is not in the children's section. I think it's fine for sexually explicit books (i.e. the book "Gender queer") to be moved out of the children's section

"See, it's not really censorship because..." is an argument anyone should be ashamed to make. Conservatives never have a problem with Mein Kampf in any context.

Mein Kampf is not in the children's section, which is what this article is about. The comparison is useless in this circumstance. Read the article before commenting.

So then are you suggesting that it's totally ok to remove a book from the children's section because the author's last name is "Gay"? Because that's what this entire post is about.

I'm saying the process of removing books from the children's section is an appropriate policy, even if it was misapplied in this case. It's not banning books, like many people in here seem to believe.

Hiding children's books from children at the behest of bigots kinda defeats the purpose of having children's books. It's effectively a ban, which is why you're defending it.

I'm ok with removing sexually explicit books from children's sections yes. Especially ones that show gratuitous sexual activity, such as the book Gender Queer https://data.ibtimes.sg/en/full/52824/gender-queer.jpg?w=813

Or "This Book is Gay" which gives a step by step on how to use gay hookup apps. These are the books that people are demanding remain in front of children.

So you support book bans and want to call them something else.

It's not banning them, just removing them from the Children's section. Children's media has always be moderated

"It's not banning! It's just hiding them from their intended audience because bigots don't like them!"

Quit splitting hairs just because you support bans but don't want to call them bans.

Gender Queer was never intended for children. It is aimed at adults and young adults.

The NEA recommended it on a list of books for educators and some people misinterpreted this (perhaps purposely, since it acts as really nice fuel for the fear fire) as being recommended for children.

It is not, nor was it ever, a children's book. And should not be in a children's section. At the youngest, it could be in the YA section (depending on a local library's discretion).

Is this the family everyone keeps talking about when they say The Gays are destroying everything? Are they like the Sachlers?

As a homosexual, I'm very interested in reading their Gay Agenda.

It's mostly a family Christmas newsletter-type deal with updates on what all the Gays are up to. Mary Gay tends to get a lot of coverage.

Today : Gay

Tomorrow : Also Gay

Oh wow, looks like I've got "be Gay" down every day for the whole year!

You know what isn't here? Forcing other people at the point of a sword to follow my religious beliefs about sexuality, gender, and expression. Not a single minute of that in the whole schedule.

It's hidden. Or I guess the more accurate term would be buried.

Reminds me of that time when some Christian website had put an RSS news feed on their home page, but of course the owner had insisted on putting a word filter on it.

So the website had a headline about "Tyson Homosexual" winning gold.

People immediately started wondering what kind of headlines the website would have on the anniversary of the historic flight of Enola Homosexual and the Hiroshima bombing.

Ah, nice! This is a glorious example of the genre.

Also gloriously resulting in sporting news stories being auto-censored to be about “rugby prostitutes” in the US.

To be fair, "ball-tickler" is a weird name for a field position so I see why they edited it.

Is the "tight end" in American football any better?

You haven't heard someone toeing the line of decency until you have listened to ex-Tight End Greg Olsen. I swear to god he talks in double entendre on purpose

Reminds me of the good old days when AOL was king of the dial-up “internet”. They unilaterally rolled out a filter that suddenly completely broke a forum devoted to survivors of breast cancer. Only after a ton of backlash and negative press about “survivors of hooter cancer” did they relent…

This is the guy the feed was talking about. A good athlete who probably got a lot of shit in school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyson_Gay

To be fair, he could have always used his father's last name instead...

Why should he? Maybe he was proud of his name. Just because people gave him shit doesn't mean he didn't want it to be his name.

That's fair. But that just means you'll have to except that you'll endure a lot of shit in school. And likely some after that as well.

I'm impressed. The author is so committed to brainwashing our innocent children into having sex that she went back in time and gave herself the name Gay.

Soon there will be a law to change her name automatically into "Marie-Louise Straight", so that administrators will be happy.

Tienanmen square levels of make believe

These loons are to books what Frankenstein's monster was to fire. I want to know who told them what's inside those buildings the smart people hang out in.

Logic checks out. I read the Berenstain Bears as a kid and I grew up to be a bear.

My friend Gaylord would get cancelled so fucking fast, he'd go back in time.

I grew up on a road called Gay. I think my whole childhood would be cancelled.

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flagged at Alabama library because author's last name is Gay

'Bama library being dumb Fockers.

Wait until these people remember that the bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, an act of heroism and a very much necessary slaughter of 100,000 civilians (don't worry, they were the bad guys), was christened Enola Gay.

I may be off my rocker here but I will bet the author has a discrimination lawsuit, if he finds a cleaver enough lawyer to argue the semantics of it.... also gay used to and still does mean happy and was used as late as the 80s in the USA... it only recently changed since the 90s to mean an orientation.... so I bet this author could have an interesting day in court....

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Please, isolate this fuck'd up country! USA is boring us to hell with their stupidity and are literally giving ammunition to LGBTQAZ madness. In the meanwhile, real ugly books with LGTBTQAZ propaganda are distributed to 6yo.

Blame the borderline pornographic books that activists have been pushing on children for this response. And before you say "this never happens" go look up the book "Gender Queer" that shows people sucking dick, doing anal, etc

Blame the borderline pornographic books that activists have been pushing on children for this response.

I know, right? When will those activists finally stop pushing the bible on kids??

Lmao, have you read Gender Queer? The protagonist comes out as asexual and mainly describes sexual topics either in the context of being uncomfortable with them or in the context of body issues. Nudity isn't automatically sexual. If I were a teen and was told this book was being removed for being pornographic, I'd feel pretty ripped off!

There is literally a page that shows someone deepthroating dick. Guess i'm crazy for thinking that is sexually explicit

Show me the page. You can't because it doesn't exist.

https://data.ibtimes.sg/en/full/52824/gender-queer.jpg?w=813

top right. its uncensored in the book just couldn't find a pic from a quick google. interested to hear you response when being shown something that doesn't exist apparently

Once again you've left out critical information. Let me put this in a bulleted list.

  • The censorship is hiding an important detail: the presence of a strap on. This means that the scene does not contain, as you put it, "sucking dick".
  • The scene depicted is described in an intentionally unsexy way, as it turns out this isn't actually what the protagonist wants.
  • The entire point of showing this is that it's the catalyst for the protagonist realizing that they are asexual. While it can be argued that it is unnecessary for this to happen on page, the fact remains that this book is intended for an audience that already knows what sex is. Nobody is putting this book in elementary schools.
  • There is a big difference between sex happening and literal porn. If there wasn't, a shit ton of nature documentaries would be x-rated.
  • The scene in question is 2 panels long. This is the entirety of it. This is the equivalent of the scene in The Shining, which 1. many people miss on a first viewing, and 2. fittingly enough is also depicted in an intentionally unsexy way.

But if all you care about is surface level bullshit and not the actual content of the story, then sure. We should totally Think of the Children^TM , who totally have no idea that sex exists by the time they reach a grade level that would be carrying this graphic novel (high school, ffs!), which is absolutely a part of the curriculum and not something that they check out of the library of their own free will./s

Oh sorry, he's deepthroating a strapon that looks like a dick, instead of deepthroating a dick itself. Funny you really think that distinction matters. These are fucking children, stop trying to force feed books with gratuitous sexual content to kids. All you're doing is trying to minimize it, which I expected.

Nobody is putting this book in elementary schools.

If I could prove to you that this book was present at Elementary schools, what would you say?

Gender Queer was never intended for children. It is aimed at adults and young adults.

The NEA recommended it on a list of books for educators and some people misinterpreted this (perhaps purposely, since it acts as really nice fuel for the fear fire) as being recommended for children.

It is not, nor was it ever, a children's book.

Funny you really think that distinction matters.

Yes, context matters. If in To Kill a Mockingbird the defendant actually did it then the book would be about defending a rapist.

These are fucking children, stop trying to force feed books with gratuitous sexual content to kids.

Buddy, it's two lousy stinking panels. If that's gratuitous to you then I don't know what to tell you. Most people can see a dick shaped object for two seconds and be fine.

If I could prove to you that this book was present at Elementary schools, what would you say?

Ok, but it isn't. You realize that it isn't, right? I'm not going to entertain this hypothetical just so that you can feel like your argument holds any water. It doesn't.

Yeah, Gender Queer is definitely a little more graphic than I think the average kid below 12-13 or so really shouldn't be seeing. The illustrations on oral sex are definitely a little more than I'm comfortable with for readers who aren't knowing what they're opening up, mostly because if i had pulled this bad boy out to read on the bus going home, I'd definitely have been bullied, hard.

I think that book is important for publication, definitely place it in an area designed for teens and those very close to it. But I wouldn't call it borderline pornographic any more than I would have called Catcher in the Rye borderline racist. If I had read this growing up, it might have helped me make sense of things, but I can see why it's such a hot button topic for some and an easy target for others.

FYI, Gender Queer was written for adults and was later deemed as appropriate for high schoolers (13/14 and older) by professional reviewers. It's not typically put in libraries for younger audiences.

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Gender Queer was never intended for children. It is aimed at adults and young adults.

The NEA recommended it on a list of books for educators and some people misinterpreted this (perhaps purposely, since it acts as really nice fuel for the fear fire) as being recommended for children.

It is not, nor was it ever, a children's book.

Classic moral panic. Find a few volumes to scream about loudly enough and use that as justification for removing any book that doesn't square with your bigotry.

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If anyone bothered to read the article, the book is not being banned but is simply flagged for removal from the children's section into the adult section. Obviously a mistake in this instance but there has been a recent rise in sexually explicit books being marketed towards children in the name of activism.

There hasn't been a rise in sexually explicit books being marketed to children. There's been a rise in claims that anything that even touches upon LGBTQ is sexually explicit.

There's a book about two male penguins that raise an egg/chick. It's based on a true story. But since it's two MALE penguins, it's deemed "not appropriate for children" and is moved out of the children's section. Nevermind that the book is designed for kids or that there's no "penguin sex" in the book. The mere fact that two males are sharing a parental role is enough to label it "sexually explicit" because the people who oppose this book imagine that the two male penguins might have sex at some point. Meanwhile, if the exact same book were published but with a male and female penguin, it would be okay. Even if you could imagine the male and female penguin having sex. (And, again, there's no actual sex or even the implication of sex. This is totally in the imaginations of the adults trying to ban the book.)

There hasn’t been a rise in sexually explicit books being marketed to children

You've clearly chosen your side but I hope you can come to acknowledge that maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Some people are using this as an excuse to criticize lgbt but it's also true that sex positive activists are a bit too eager to impose their beliefs on children in public schools. What you described is probably an example of the former, but that does not mean the latter doesn't happen.

"Criticize LGBTQ"? They've claimed that anything that even mentions LGBTQ is sexually explicit and must be banned. If a character in a book so much as says "I'm gay," that's enough for the book to be banned. Meanwhile, a book where a boy likes a girl is deemed just fine because that's not LGBTQ.

The book banning movement is an attempt to erase LGBTQ from literary works by saying "LGBTQ= Sexually Explicit."

You are generalizing. There is a genuine reason not to want non binary theythem activists teaching your young child.

First of all, this isn't generalizing. The article above is about an author's book being banned because his NAME is "Gay." Teachers have gotten in trouble with parents because they had rainbows in the classroom. Books are being targeted merely for the tiniest bits of LGBTQ content.

Secondly, now you're saying that anyone who is non-binary shouldn't be teaching kids? For what reason? Does the fact that they use they/them pronouns make them unsuitable to be teachers for some reason?

Activists shouldn't bring their activism into gradeschool classrooms was my point.

So Christian activists shouldn't push their anti-LGBTQ beliefs into grade school classrooms? Or does this only apply to LGBTQ people being unable to speak their minds?

Also, how do you define "activist?" If a grade school teacher happens to be lesbian, should she be able to mention her wife in the same manner that an equivalent straight teacher would be able to mention her husband? (For example, "my wife/husband and I went on vacation.") Does mentioning that she is married to a woman make her an activist? Does a non-binary teacher asking to be referred to as "they/them" automatically become an activist for doing so?

I'm not going to entertain your "DEFINE EXACTLY WHAT THE PHENOMENA YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT OR IT DOESNT EXIST" bullshit. There's a lot of nuance to this topic and its hard to draw concrete lines anywhere, but I would say teachers should focus on the curriculum and not their personal life. I don't think explicitly anti-lgbt indoctrination belongs in classrooms either. I want teachers to avoid discussions about sensitive social issues altogether, it is not their role.

Stop trying to make it a both sides issue when in fact, the fascists are the only ones trying to fuck over kids.

You have yet to provide a single example of the thing you're claiming "also happens" despite nobody having ever heard of this happening. We have clear examples of the anti-LGBTQ bullshittery from the OP article, where are yours?

I don't have to prove shit to you, I'm just voicing my opinion. You are welcome to call it stupid. Keep moving. Whenever I have posted evidence of sexually explicit activity in front of children it gets downplayed and I'm called a prude. I don't really care to reason with you to be perfectly honest. Like most things in life, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe it's skewed to one side sometimes, but it seems people are so afraid to self criticize out of fear of giving the other side ammo.

Except the ones who want to ban books for you.

its not activists within the school requesting that, it's parents of kids.

It's groups like Moms for Liberty, an outside group that quotes Hitler in their newsletter.

Yes, that reason is called bigotry.

no, it's not. when (if) you have children one day you will recognize why its not a good thing to let activist teachers confuse your kids.

As a parent, I can confidently state that not all of us are bigots , not all of us want our kids to be bigots, and not all of us preach hatred for anyone different

no, it’s not

It's bigotry and absolutely nothing else at all. Just because you're easily confused, that doesn't mean you need to project your deficiencies onto your children.

sex positive activists are a bit too eager to impose their beliefs on children in public schools

This is nonsense

It's not nonsense. I don't think the activists think they're doing anything wrong or have bad intent, they just don't respect the innocence of children as much as others, which causes conflict.

they just don’t respect the innocence of children as much as other

This is the nonsense part.

it's not nonsense.

Sex positive educators are literally experts in age-appropriate sexual discussion.

Pretending they are not because age-appropriate discussion freaks you out is your mistake not theirs.

Experts do actually know more than you do

TRUST THE EXPERTS TO TEACH YOUR KID ANAL SEX YOU ARE JUST IGNORANT IF YOU DONT WANT THAT. I would not want my kid anywhere near "sex positive educators"

Hey guess what? Your kid is going to try anal some day. Might be nice for them to know how to do it safely, when that time comes.

And yes, there is a bevy of literature available for what age ranges such subjects are appropriate, and those guidelines are followed by trained professionals.

Hey guess what? Your kid is going to try anal some day.

You're a fucking sicko. No, kids do not need to be taught how to do anal sex by their school teachers. Can't believe i'm typing that.

Screenshotting this.

It's so telling of how you look at the world that you think I would ever feel regret about posting that comment lol

While your reaction is funny, the sad thing is that your denial of reality causes genuine harm and long-term suffering.

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