Libraries Remove Gay-Themed Book At Beck Group Member's Request

[RamboLiberal]

A member of Glenn Beck's 9.12 Project succeeded in getting an award-winning book of essays by gay teens removed from a New Jersey public library and a local high school library after a library director referred to it as "child pornography."

The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill, N.J., reports that the "gay-themed book, which was pulled from a local high school's library after a resident objected to its content, has also been yanked from Burlington County's library system.

"The county system's decision to remove 'Revolutionary Voices,' an anthology of first-person works by gay youths, was made quietly in the spring. But it's now stirring an online furor with the release of e-mails on the issue by the county's library director, Gail Sweet."

The complaint was made in the spring by Beverly Marinelli, a member of the local 9.12 Project, who discussed the issue with the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. E-mails between Sweet and Marinelli, as well as those between Sweet and library staffers, were just released following an ACLU FOIA request.

http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201008050011

How can we grab the books so that they never, ever get back into circulation?" Sweet asked in one e-mail to a library employee. "Copies need to totally disappear (as in not a good idea to send copies to the book sale)."

And when another librarian asked why the award-winning book was being removed, Sweet responded with two words: "Child pornography."
The e-mails were obtained through a public-records request by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which provided them to the Courier-Post on Wednesday.

"We have concerns (over the book's removal)," said Jeanne LoCicero, deputy legal director for the ACLU-NJ. She said "Revolutionary Voices" had faced no official challenge at the library and the library's commissioners had not voted on its removal, according to information in Sweet's e-mails.

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The controversy has spurred Lumberton native Brandon Monokian to form a troupe that stages readings from "Revolutionary Voices."
"I did it so people could actually hear the words in the book," said Monokian, an actor who graduated from Rancocas Valley in 2005. "I just think they (the writers) are speaking from the heart."


http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20100805/NEWS01/8050337/Second-library-removes-gay-book

[6000eliot]

1. Hey, Beverly. FUCK YOU!

[msongs]

2. we could ask for bibles to be removed due adultery, bestiality, genocide and lots more nt

[SocialistLez]

3. Couldn't we though? NT

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. Incest.

Fundies love to tell the story of Sodom & Gomorrah in Genesis 19 and spin it into a tale of how (to quote Rev. Phelps) "God hates fags". But they usually leave out the end of that particular chapter, where Lot's daughters get dear old dad shitfaced and then do him when he passes out, because their boyfriends died in God's blitzkrieg attack on the city, and they're left with nobody else to fuck.

[mzteris]

8. AMEN to that! n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. More selective application of the constitution

Ignorant tea baggers.

[Shallah Kali]

6. This makes me want to donate this book to my local library

but it's out of print. Could someone post some suggestions for good books supportive of glbtq teens instead?

[MountainLaurel]

10. Am I Blue? is very popular

As is GLBTQ and Hear Us Out

[liberal_at_heart]

7. I'm thinking of donating some Buddhist and atheist books to my library

When I first became interested in Buddhism and my daughter first became interested in atheism I started going to the library to find out more about these subjects. There were dozens of books on Christianity but only 3 or 4 on Buddhism and even less on atheism.

[MountainLaurel]

9. Please do!

Library purchasing budgets are being decimated (a friend of mine's was cut in half last year), so if the book has been published within the past few years, it's likely they'll put it on the shelves. Also, if your library has a mechanism for recommending purchases, use that as well so they know that people in their community are interested in these topics. I've been rather surprised at what my local library has purchased after I made recommendations.

[Mnemosyne]

11. I have been a pacifist my entire 52 years, but have come to the conclusion,

after the * years, that some people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them. :cry:

Teh stoopid hertz.

[krispos42]

12. Really? When are they going to remove the Bible, too?

Or at least put a warning sticker on it?

[SafeLibraries]

14. I admit it, that's funny

I admit it, that's funny.

[SafeLibraries]

13. The book was not banned

Forgive me, but the book was not banned. The DU is not wrong in the slightest. The problem here is that the news as reported that the DU referenced is false. I know because I was the first person to speak with the library director and report on what I learned.

Further, what I had initially reported has been confirmed by some media. Other media, however, including the MMfA reference linked, chooses to continue to ignore the facts, going for the sexier story of the Glenn Beck fan getting a book banned from a public library for being "child pornography." But that sexy story is pure fiction or is based on half truths. But it sells more papers or generates links.

Please see what I reported about my conversation with the library director at "Et tu, Mary Minow? Then Fall, Gail Sweet!" at the following link:

http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2010/08/et-tu-mary-minow-then-fall-gail-sweet.html

Thank you.

[depakid]

15. New Jersey sure seems to love its libraries