Quote:
Originally Posted by patrickt
I don't consider a school district in Minnesota not having a book in their library as book banning. A neo-Nazi group donated books to our library and they were pissed when they weren't put on the shelves. They were held in a special reserved section for people doing research. I didn't consider that banning either. If NAMBLA had donated books I doubt they would have gone on the shelves. That's called exercising judgement and responsible behavior and not book banning. I know it's hard to believe but our local library did not have a section for hardcore porn.
"Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller was banned. You couldn't legally sell it and you couldn't send it through the mails. That's banning.
|
I disagree. All of your examples are attempts to decide what literature someone else has access to. I might be swayed by the argument that community money shouldn't be spent on literature that the majority of the community finds offensive, but you specifically described donated books. It's "exercising judgement" when you apply it to your personal library, but tyranny to apply it to public space. The only restriction that I would consider reasonable is "no minors in this section without an accompanying parent or guardian."