Book Banning Still Goes On

What part of "public" education don't they get?

Public education applies to the public, no? Meaning everyone, no matter the color, the gender, the sexual orientation, the religious, or non-religious beliefs. Am I right, or does public education mean the education of the public by the will of the few.

See, that what seems to be happening in a place called, of all things, Republic, Missouri, where the school board voted 4-0 recently to ban Slaughterhouse-Five and another book, Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer, after a local resident complained that the books teach ideas contrary to the Bible.

Ideas contrary to the Bible being taught in "public" schools.

Wesley Scroggins

That local crackpot resident religious wingnut, one Wesley Scroggins, originally wanted three three books banned, but the school board voted to keep Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak on the shelves. After the vote, which takes the books out of school curriculum and removes them from the school library, Scroggins crowed: "I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books. It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book.”

A public school succumbed to the religious rantings of one resident. One resident who believes public schools, that are paid for by all residents tax dollars, should not have any book on the shelf that contradicts or questions the Bible. Even if some of those public school students don't read the Bible, but read other religious texts, or read no religious books. Muslims students. Jewish students. Agnostic and atheist students must bow to the will of people like Wesley Scroggins.

People who don't seem to understand that this country is built on a Separation of Church and State. If you want to educate your children in the ways of the Bible, go to church. But don't force your religion down the throats of everyone, Wesley Scroggins. See, maybe one day, there will be another narrow-mined bigot like Wesley Scroggins who gets the school board to ban books about black people, gay people, Muslims, women, Socialists, Marxists, Communist. How can we every understand the world, and learn about the world, if we teach and read and learn only one thing?

Hopefully, as happened way back in 1982, the Supreme Court will strike down the ruling by the school board.  Back then, a school board in New York voted to ban eight books, including Slaughterhouse-Five, after a right-wingnut group started a campaign against them. Board members agreed, calling the books “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.”

But Justice William Brennan led a court plurality in striking down the censorship scheme: “In brief, we hold that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’ Such purposes stand inescapably condemned by our precedents.”

And in 1993, a school board in Olathe, Kansas, ordered the removal of the book Annie on My Mind from a school library because it deals with homosexuality. Parents who supported the novel sued and won. A federal court ruled that public schools may not ban books “based on their personal social, political and moral views.”

Which is what Wesley Scroggins asked the Republic school board to do, and its exactly what they did.

It's time people understood that there are all sorts of people in the world, some who share our views, and some who don't But how are we to understand those people who are different if we ban books about them, and make the learning of anything other than one way, illegal?

If we don't understand one another, we'll never get along. Something many so-called Christians, like Wesley Scroggins, don't seem to understand. Maybe they ought to read a good book, and open their minds.

source