Another fight started by more folks who want the government to control the media available to you. This is Wisconsin, not the Swot Valley, mind you:
The strife began in February when West Bend couple Jim and Ginny Maziarka objected to some of the content in the city library’s young-adult section. They later petitioned the library board to move any sexually explicit books — the definition of which would be debated — from the young-adult section to the adult section and to label them as sexually explicit.
Ginny Maziarka, 49, said the books in the section of the library aimed at children aged 12 to 18 included homosexual and heterosexual content she thought was inappropriate for youths.
She wants to be able to control what everybody’s kids get to read, not just her own. There is pushback:
Maria Hanrahan, also a West Bend mom, set up a rival blog to argue the other side.
“I’m against any other party telling me what’s appropriate for my child and what isn’t,” said Hanrahan, 40, who also created a West Bend Parents for Free Speech group. “We don’t mean to say these are appropriate for everyone, but we don’t feel they should be set apart from other materials or restricted from the young-adult section.”
And some wingnut christianists from outside the community jump in the fray with a lawsuit and a call for public book burning:
Outside West Bend, the fight caught the attention of Robert Braun, who, with three other Milwaukee-area men, filed a claim against West Bend calling for one of the library’s books to be publicly burned, along with financial damages.
If you want complete control over what your kids read, I suggest you do the work to make sure that they read what you want them to, in a spot where you can watch them. Don’t make an entire community enforce your control issues.
Thumbnail pic by Gregory Maxwell used under GDFL.