What Books Would Jesus Burn?
In a scene which appears to have been lifted straight out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a group of Christians in Wisconsin has launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers which they deem to be “explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian”.
The offending book is Francesca Lia Block’s Baby Be-Bop, a young adult novel in which a boy, struggling with his homosexuality, is beaten up by a homophobic gang. The complaint, which according to the American Library Association also demands $120,000 (£72,000) in compensatory damages for being exposed to the book in a display at West Bend Community Memorial Library, was lodged by four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union.
Because if history has taught us anything, it’s that burning books works, suing for the right, doubly so. Also, it never, ever makes them more popular.
I haven’t read Baby Be-Bop, but I did recently read Weetzie Bat, the first book in the same series. It’s a beautiful story, about people (some of them gay!) looking for love and acceptance, a topic I know really rankles Christians. I think it was in the Gospel of John where Jesus said, “Fuck all those pansy-ass fagots, they’ll burn for wanting to be loved like a real person.”
Link via @neilhimself
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The real question is:
Does one burn the books before or after breaking the windows of businesses belonging to people who don’t believe in the proper religion?
That’s a regional detail left to the mob’s discretion.
Perhaps the gentlemen from the Christian Civil Liberties Union (Newspeak, anyone?) would be more at home in a country where the people in charge share their view of both homosexuals and controversial books that question religion.
Saudi Arabia, for instance…
Or Iran. They could go somewhere where they’re really a minority and would be really oppressed.
Christian Civil Liberties Union?
Talk about an oxymoron.