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Alabama Bill Targets Gay Authors
MONTGOMERY, Ala., April 27, 2005
A college production tells the story of Matthew Sheppard, a student beaten to death because he was gay.
And soon, it could be banned in Alabama.
Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.
"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."
Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters.
Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can't define what a classic is. Also exempted now Alabama's public and college libraries.
Librarian Donna Schremser fears the "thought police," would be patrolling her shelves.
"And so the idea that we would have a pristine collection that represents one political view, one religioius view, that's not a library,'' says Schremser.
"I think it's an absolutely absurd bill," says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
First Amendment advocates say the ban clearly does amount to censorship.
"It's a Nazi book burning," says Potok. "You know, it's a remarkable piece of work."
But in book after book, Allen reads what he calls the "homosexual agenda,"
and he's alarmed.
"It's not healthy for America, it doesn't fit what we stand for," says Allen. "And they will do whatever it takes to reach their goal."
He says he sees this as a line in the sand.
In Alabama's legislature, the reviews of Allen's bill are still out on whether to lower this curtain for good.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/26/eveningnews/printable691106.shtml
this isn't a gay issue.
this is an issue that strikes at the very core of what it means to be an American. in fact, what it means to be a Westerner. there's no question that one element of our politics - one that happens to have a stranglehold on Republican social policy - holds that religion should dictate politics, and that opposition to a certain politics is tantamount to anti-religious bigotry. though gay people are the big, bad boogeyman of this element of Republican politics, this is about, you know, things like SCIENCE, stem cell research, endangering the lives of teenagers with abstinence-only education, the teaching of evolution, free access to medical prescriptions, the legality of living wills, abortion rights, censorship of cable and network television, etc. it's taken a qualified doctor like Bill Frist -- who had done remarkable work in Africa -- and forced him to say that tears and sweat might transmit HIV and to make a gut-busting, hilarious "diagnosis" of a brain-dead woman via videotape.
i'm going to come out and say it: this is absolutely nuts, illogical, and anti-American. we are all Americans, we are not all this specific stripe of Christian. get your convenient interpretations of the Bible off my back, out of my classroom, public library, pharmacies, and bedroom.
perhaps i feel this threat more acutely than others, but it is a, to use another alarmist phrase, a grave and gathering danger.
MONTGOMERY, Ala., April 27, 2005
A college production tells the story of Matthew Sheppard, a student beaten to death because he was gay.
And soon, it could be banned in Alabama.
Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.
"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."
Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters.
Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can't define what a classic is. Also exempted now Alabama's public and college libraries.
Librarian Donna Schremser fears the "thought police," would be patrolling her shelves.
"And so the idea that we would have a pristine collection that represents one political view, one religioius view, that's not a library,'' says Schremser.
"I think it's an absolutely absurd bill," says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
First Amendment advocates say the ban clearly does amount to censorship.
"It's a Nazi book burning," says Potok. "You know, it's a remarkable piece of work."
But in book after book, Allen reads what he calls the "homosexual agenda,"
and he's alarmed.
"It's not healthy for America, it doesn't fit what we stand for," says Allen. "And they will do whatever it takes to reach their goal."
He says he sees this as a line in the sand.
In Alabama's legislature, the reviews of Allen's bill are still out on whether to lower this curtain for good.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/26/eveningnews/printable691106.shtml
this isn't a gay issue.
this is an issue that strikes at the very core of what it means to be an American. in fact, what it means to be a Westerner. there's no question that one element of our politics - one that happens to have a stranglehold on Republican social policy - holds that religion should dictate politics, and that opposition to a certain politics is tantamount to anti-religious bigotry. though gay people are the big, bad boogeyman of this element of Republican politics, this is about, you know, things like SCIENCE, stem cell research, endangering the lives of teenagers with abstinence-only education, the teaching of evolution, free access to medical prescriptions, the legality of living wills, abortion rights, censorship of cable and network television, etc. it's taken a qualified doctor like Bill Frist -- who had done remarkable work in Africa -- and forced him to say that tears and sweat might transmit HIV and to make a gut-busting, hilarious "diagnosis" of a brain-dead woman via videotape.
i'm going to come out and say it: this is absolutely nuts, illogical, and anti-American. we are all Americans, we are not all this specific stripe of Christian. get your convenient interpretations of the Bible off my back, out of my classroom, public library, pharmacies, and bedroom.
perhaps i feel this threat more acutely than others, but it is a, to use another alarmist phrase, a grave and gathering danger.
. Some people are morons, plain and simple. I went off on a long rant about this somewhere else, and am all ranted out, so I think the banghead smiley will suffice for now. 
.
. Honestly, my parents must be a very odd kind, then, 'cause I was raised to believe discrimination against others was wrong. I'd like to know when the memo came in that passing the concept of discrimination on to children was a good thing.
