Today ends the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week to bring attention to what people will do to keep other people from reading or hearing ideas or viewpoints that self-appointed censors are afraid of. This year alone at least 6870 book bans went into effect in 23 states. What are these guardians of our morals so afraid of?
Books banned range from Forever by Judy Blume about two teenagers having sex and no one experiencing punishment from God to Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, a study of the origins of caste thinking and how white supremacy in the United States is similar to caste systems in India and Nazi Germany. The only sex in this book is a discussion of the fear of miscegenation, mixing the races.
These self-appointed guardians have even banned Shakespeare, and not just Romeo and Juliet, but also Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear, not to mention Twelfth Night, banned in a New Hampshire town because the comedy includes some cross dressing, clearly an affront to public morals. What these would intellectual giants think if they knew that in Shakespeare’s time all acting, male and female roles, was done by men?
Prayer for the Day
You, O Lord, call us to explore the world around us,
As we open our minds to the breadth of your creation;
But, it seems, O God, we need protection from people,
Wanting to protect us from the minds you have given us.
Enlarge our vision and encourage our exploration,
So we never stop using the minds you have given us.
In the name of the One who always asked questions,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
There are worse crimes than burning books. One is not reading them.
Joseph Brodsky, Russian-American Nobel laureate (1940-1996)
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Salman Rushdie, Indian born American novelist, attacked and partially blind
In this age of censorship, I mourn the loss of books that will never be written, I mourn the voices that will be silenced-writers' voices, teachers' voices, students' voices-and all because of fear.
Judy Blume, American novelist
Now the Lord is spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 3: 17