KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR LIBRARIES

Warning for Rep. Gerald Allen of the State Legislature of Alabama and anyone else with similar bright ideas:

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR LIBRARIES!

I’m too livid right now to write a coherent response to this but the jist is that Allen is working on legislation that would forbid public monies to be spent on media that depicts the gay lifestyle in a favorable light. Contemplate that for a moment. Really. Chew on it. And if you don’t start to feel like you are about to choke on it, you just aren’t getting it.

First, he wants his law to apply against media that depicts homosexuals in a favorable light but not necessarily media that is unfavorable. Like for example hate-mongering.

Second and most scary of all, once a law like this exists anywhere in America, it wouldn’t be long before someone somewhere is attempting to mimic it for whatever agenda they might have. Here is a list of the kinds of information that could start disappearing off our library shelves:

Facts about contraception, facts about sex, facts about Government misdeeds, facts about unpopular religious views, facts about unpopular political views. Media which depicts the complexities of the abortion choice in a favorable light, media which depicts any sexual behavior outside of marriage in a favorable light, media which depicts any current administration in an unfavorable light, media which depicts corporate products or behaviors in an unfavorable light (the veggie libel laws already serve this purpose), media that depicts any of America’s history in an unfavorable light, media which depicts non-whites in a favorable light, media which depicts dissenters in a favorable light….it would be endless. The slippery slope into the bliss of ignorance. How far off could Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 be once we have a law like that? Do I need to start memorizing my favorite book today?