So totally cool if an atheist government came to power and started banning the Bible because of all the violence and rape depicted that’s in there (hey - it’s only if you take federal funding)? Or you’ll say it’s totally different because the stories about the Bible are how to be morale thus providing context? Context you conveniently omit from your example which covers all kinds of sexuality and how to navigate that with all the other romantic feelings. Children in my class btw regularly drew and wrote more obscene things.
Why do I feel like the people doing this for gay and trans materials would be the first to object people trying to apply it to religious texts?
Look, I asked when I was like 10 for a book and the library warned my dad it was intended for adults. I think the most he asked me was if I was sure / why I wanted to read the book but ultimately left it to me. Children picking their reading materials is critically important both as a skill of learning how to pick and how to deal and digest the content you encounter.
And here’s something uncomfortable. Unlike religious texts, which are forced onto children, no one was forcing kids to read this book. Kids were searching it out because they were curious about sexuality and trying to understand their feelings which means the age of those “kids” was probably 10+ when they were probably perfectly capable of processing these issues with the support of mature and rational adults. The problem as always are the adults in this situation who demand the rest of society “protect” their children from the ideas out there in world instead of raising resilient kids, which is an insane position honestly.
Finally, what about all the other books that aren’t like the one you pointed out? I feel like among the books gender queer is an exception in terms of explicitness and the real thread that connects the banned books is what they talk about, not how.
Even though you’ve widely missed the point, ironically complaining that others can barely read, let’s engage with your argument to show how it’s not so easy.
Libraries today carry the Bible. Libraries, as non profits, also get grants from various entities including local, state, and federal governments. So then is the argument we should we then ban all government funding for libraries? I’m going to assume your response is to say “no, just don’t use federal dollars for this stuff” although it’s not wild of someone of your presumed political persuasion to also be in favor of this option. Is that easy though? It’s not like there’s a magical fairy that attributes “book A was purchased from this funding stream and book B from this other”. “No no” I can hear you saying. You do this with block grants - that solves the mixing problem. Except it doesn’t - I have pool A of money from the federal government and pool B from some other source. I normally might use A and B equally to buy some books but now I just buy the banned books from B and A to by the rest. So now I’m not using federal dollars but I’m still buying all the same books with the same input stream of money. If you’re literate you understand this is the exact same problem we have with “this tax or penalty or whatever will be used to fund schools” which is meaningless because they just then decrease the school funding by that new revenue amount, thus effectively funneling it into the general fund.
> There’s no need to be reading the bible, a comic book, a book about being gender queer, etc; when students can barely read to begin with.
If you're talking about “can barely” read it’s important to be precise about what you mean because excluding the pandemic, scores have been pretty constant over the past 20 years. And by the way, reading different texts with different subject matters with different ways of understanding and interpreting the subject matter is precisely important for developing reading skills.
But you’re right - for those in this thread who are struggling with basic reading and critical thinking skills to understand the points people make in the comments, maybe we should recommend them some starting materials.
You’re overcomplicating a simple issue of budgetary standards to avoid the actual point. Calling a federal funding restriction a "ban" is a massive reach. If I refuse to pay for my kid to buy a certain video game, I haven’t "banned" the game from existence; I’ve just exercised my right to decide how my money is spent.
Your "Pool A and Pool B" shell game theory is exactly why these federal restrictions are being introduced. If schools are just shuffling money around to bypass community standards, then the federal government has every right to put a hard "no" on its portion of the tab. It’s called fiscal accountability.
Also, the argument that "reading anything helps literacy" is a weak excuse for including sexually oriented or gender-theory materials in a taxpayer-funded elementary curriculum. If the goal is literacy, we should be funding proven phonics programs and the classics, not social experiments. People aren't "missing the point" just because they don't want to subsidize your specific social preferences with their tax dollars.
The bill specifically carves out text for "preserving instruction in science, classic literature, art, and world religionS.
Where "classic literature" is specifically defined as:
“(B) CLASSIC WORKS OF LITERATURE.—The term ‘classic works of literature’ means the works of literature (including translations of such works)—
“(i) included in the Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 1990), published by Encyclopaedia Britannica;
“(ii) referenced in the article ‘Classics Every Middle Schooler Should Read’ by Thomas Purifoy, Jr. and published by Compass Classroom (as such article appeared on the date of enactment of this subsection); and
“(iii) referenced in the article ‘Classics Every High Schooler Should Read’ by Mary Pierson Purifoy and published by Compass Classroom (as such article appeared on the date of enactment of this subsection).
Of the first, "The selection of authors has come under attack, with some dismissing the project as a celebration of European men, ignoring contributions of women and non-European authors" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_Wor...
Of the latter two, Thomas Purifoy, Jr. is a Young Earth Creationist. Mary Pierson Purifoy is, I believe, his 26 year old homeschooled daughter, who then went to Liberty University, a conservative, private evangelical Christian.
Compass Classroom develops materials for Christian Homeschooling.
That sounds like a deliberate bias towards a white, male, English, Christian subset of classic literature. Not only doesn't they include something like "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", it doesn't look like they even include Les Misérables, which we read in school.
While the first list includes Freud's "The Sexual Enlightenment of Children"???
Yeah, go ahead and explain why students should read that but not have an explicit allowance for Les Misérables.
> Also, the argument that "reading anything helps literacy" is a weak excuse for including sexually oriented or gender-theory materials in a taxpayer-funded elementary curriculum
Elementary if you mean k-6 sure, but the ban applies to secondary school students too which is where the real problem is because, you know, sex ed and puberty start to become relevant. Also elementary can mean grades 7 and 8 where this topic is actually relevant because again sex ed and puberty and pretending like sex ed isn’t important for the government to fund/restricting it to abstinence is proven to result in exploding STD rates, teen pregnancy, higher abortion rates and other medical and psychological issues longer term. It’s almost like sex is an activity people will engage in regardless and all education does is make it safer and less traumatic. Who would have thunk. No one “on the other side” is arguing to make this material easily accessible to first graders, but that it should remain accessible to those going through puberty can start as early as grade 5 which is why there’s a common practice to start in grade 7 to capture it when it’s become broadly relevant and puberty has started maturing more towards sexuality.
Also the text you cited is meaningless because “art” is subjective - one man’s art is another’s profanity. For example Olympia by Manet was called obscene and is now considered foundational to the modernism movement. The last judgement by Michelangelo was also considered profane at times despite being important in the Renaissance and censored at times. The author of the book in question would certainly call her book an artistic expression so now you’re into characterizing on your opinion (or rather the opinion of some group that gets power) what counts as acceptable art and what counts as profane.
And finally schools should be a place for the opportunity for self directed learning so limiting it to instruction is silly. And what if a teacher of English wanted to instruct the students about censorship by examining the contents of banned books to grade 11 and grade 12?
Also, if you can’t see how the same group is also washing a cultural war on higher education, particularly when it comes to sexual and gender topics, I don’t know how you don’t see this fight extends there eventually as well. Again - this is fight is largely driven by the Christian nationalist movement and religious fundamentalist zealots on a crusade against education, even if they maybe have legitimate concerns in narrow cases, is going to really cause a lot more collateral damage.
If you really can’t see the problems with all of this, I don’t know how to help you. It’s a story we’ve seen on repeat throughout history, whether the Iranian revolution and similar shifts to fundamentalism in other Arabic countries, witch hunts, ISIS, Spanish Inquisition, etc etc. it’s always the dumbest people you know persecuting the people they don’t like for saying uncomfortable things.
I guess goodbye to the Enlightenment principles this country was founded on because there’s a claimed issue that can’t be demonstrated to have had any scientific evidence for harm? And science it’s important to use here because it is under attack - the same people have repeatedly tried to ban and fight teaching the theory of evolution and tried to push teaching “intelligent design” into the science room.
> So totally cool if an atheist government came to power and
From public libraries? Not many christians are borrowing the bible from the public library, I don't think they'd care. It's also telling that you assume I'm christian myself. This is why the Democrats lose elections, you know. You think that the only ones voting against you are biblethumpers. You count those up, and there's no way team red can win.
>Why do I feel like the people doing this for gay and trans materials would
You mean the people who don't want pornography being distributed to their children in the public schools that they are forced to fund? Those people?
>And here’s something uncomfortable. Unlike religious texts, which are forced onto children, no one was forcing kids to read this book.
The drug dealer defense? "I didn't put a gun to his head and force him to inject fentanyl-laced street heroin!"
>I feel like among the books gender queer is an exception in terms of explicitness
But I didn't complain about those other books, did I? When you look up the lists of "top banned books", do those other books show up at the top of the list? Are they on the list at all? You failed to police your own, and now the rest of us are being forced to police them. That book wasn't banned though never being purchased by school libraries. It had to first show up on the shelf. And you didn't do anything to stop it. Now responsible people have to step in and do it for you.
That page (and the rest of the book) is far less pornographic than the actual porn I and many other kids I grew up with had access to, and regularly shared between ourselves, and is incredibly tame.
I also find it very telling that you'd consider what is on page 168 pornographic in the first place, sexually explicit maybe, but it is not intended to arouse or cause sexual excitement, it's meant to portray a lived experience.
The sexual repression in the United States is part of the reason why so many people grow up with the wrong ideas around sex and why teen pregnancy is such a big thing. Open discussion about these things (including gender and gender identity in that) is the best way to allow kids to grow up to be functional adults that are well informed and able to have critical thought about how and what they do and are far less likely to fall prey to predators and people who want to do them harm due to their lack of experience.
> That page (and the rest of the book) is far less pornographic than the actual porn I and many other kids I grew up with had access to, and regularly shared between ourselves, and is incredibly tame.
So your argument is school libraries should have Playboy and Penthouse on the library magazine rack because you had access to a Hustler? Softcore porn is "incredibly tame" compared to hardcore porn, therefore softcore porn belongs in schools?
That's an insane argument. The pornographic-ness of "the actual porn I and many other kids I grew up with had access to" has no relevance to decisions about what to put in a school library.
You sound like you aren't really reasoning, rather you're just coming up with justifications only in the context of achieving a particular result, and not considering other implications.
Sex education and access to educational material around sexuality is inversely correlated with teen pregnancy. The page in the book you mention has a non-detailed cartoon depiction of a teenager giving someone a blowjob for the first time, as part of a plot of them figuring out their identity (which is given far more page time). Especially taken in view of the larger work, I argue this does belong in a school and is categorically different from Playboy and Penthouse.
So your argument is basically that more teenage girls should get pregnant? While it makes sense that the current administration would take this step, considering the President's numerous attempts at teen pregnancy have been a contentious issue, what's your motive?
You sound like you aren't really reasoning, rather you're just coming up with justifications only in the context of achieving a particular result, and not considering other implications.
> The page in the book you mention has a non-detailed cartoon depiction of a teenager giving someone a blowjob for the first time, as part of a plot of them figuring out their identity (which is given far more page time). Especially taken in view of the larger work, I argue this does belong in a school and is categorically different from Playboy and Penthouse.
That's a different argument than the one you made.
But your opponents still have a point: imagine an encyclopedia with an entry on pornography, where they included a full-color, photograph of a page from an old Playboy (perhaps one where they didn't actually show any of the naughty bits), purely as illustration. It hits all the criteria you mention, but the photograph is still inappropriate for school and superfluous. It's legitimate for the school, school board, or whoever is funding the library to refuse to pay for such an encyclopedia, on a account of that photograph. It was a poor choice by the publisher.
And the encyclopedia isn't "banned," you can still get it yourself somewhere else, the school or whatever just made a choice about what to carry or what not to carry which they do all the time and will always do.
> So your argument is basically that more teenage girls should get pregnant?
No, obviously not. And that you went there shows pretty flawed reasoning. You didn't seem to understand my comment, and you seem to be responding to a character to a drama you've got going in your head.
My argument was what you said didn't make sense: I already summed it up: "the pornographic-ness of 'the actual porn I and many other kids I grew up with had access to' has no relevance to decisions about what to put in a school library."
> But your opponents still have a point: imagine an encyclopedia with an entry on pornography, where they included a full-color, photograph of a page from an old Playboy (perhaps one where they didn't actually show any of the naughty bits), purely as illustration. It hits all the criteria you mention, but the photograph is still inappropriate for school and superfluous. It's legitimate for the school, school board, or whoever is funding the library to refuse to pay for such an encyclopedia, on a account of that photograph. It was a poor choice by the publisher.
I would have absolutely no problem with this existing in a middle or high school.
> you seem to be responding to a character to a drama you've got going in your head.
I was just applying the same false dichotomy and "so your argument is" logic you've been applying to others in this thread. I was wondering whether it would 1) appeal to you, 2) make you realize the error of your approach, or 3) reveal hypocrisy. Now I know.
> I was just applying the same false dichotomy and "so your argument is" logic you've been applying to others in this thread. I was wondering whether it would 1) appeal to you, 2) make you realize the error of your approach, or 3) reveal hypocrisy. Now I know.
No, it's option 4: you didn't really understand the narrowness of my point (which I was really explicit about), and kinda aped bits of the structure without really getting it. The proof is how you want on about teen pregnancy in response to me, like that had anything to do with what I was saying or where I was coming from.
>That page (and the rest of the book) is far less pornographic than the actual porn I and many other kids I grew up with had access to, and regularly shared between ourselves, and is incredibly tame.
And you'd be ok with federal funds to be used to purchase "actual porn" and place it in schools?
The bill is about not using federal funds for this material.
Great, you've identified how people who want books for children to include porn can include that porn without getting in trouble for it. Just need 167 pages of filler.
>Cool. So if those mythical people actually exist and do so, we can address it if it ever happens.
My original comment that you and others replied to gives the name of the book, the author, the name of the site you can view the book for free, and tells you which page to turn to. It's not mythical, I all but deep-linked to it.
There is no baby in the swampwater you peddle. You probably don't have a baby and never had a baby... I have children. This is actually important to me.
The book you linked to is not pornography hidden behind 167 pages of filler. It is appropriate content for teenagers and I have zero issue with it existing in a public school.
I do have kids, and I don't appreciate the harm you are trying to do to the environment they are growing up in.
> And it is pornographic, check page 168. Just far enough into the book so that any adult checking it first might not notice and permit it.
Is your position that a proportionate response is a national book ban - to violate the 1A with a law that permanently, negatively impacts millions of Americans ?
> Is your position that a proportionate response is a national book ban - to violate the 1A with a law that permanently, negatively impacts millions of Americans ?
I didn't know it was a First Amendment violation for the government to not give me money to buy porn. Not giving me money is ban on what I'd have spent it on! When will this injustice be righted! When will I get my money!?
This issue just goes to show that liberals aren't immune to propaganda and misinformation, and they have their own problems with it.
you know, every time i see this book cited as the worst example of what the book banners want to ban, i check it out. Skimming to the "pornographic parts", i'm reminded just how repressed we are to find this repulsive. You should be uncomfortable when learning new things. Sexuality is not pornography. It's certainly more extreme than anything I was ever exposed to in my youth, but i'm sure this could have been massively helpful to a few kids in my high school, and probably de-stigmatizing for a few others. Certainly worth pissing off a few parents.
The conflation of sexuality and pornography is one of the most harmful Puritan ideologies to persist into modern American culture. Speaking as a recovering Catholic who grew up in an extremely sexually repressive household.
As far as gender and sexuality specifically, nearly every aspect of what I did and said was analyzed and judged as "gay" or "not gay" by my guardians, gay also serving as a proxy for non-masculinity... and thus I could not for example have long hair (as apparently only gay men have long hair, and routinely pointing out that Jesus himself had long hair frequently led to punishment or physical abuse). From music taste to choice in friends to choice in language or books, to how I dressed.
In fact, I was told that men are never supposed to cry or show weakness, and my grandfather would quite literally beat the living shit out of me on a very frequent basis from the age of five, savagely beating me with metal objects and whips and belts, anything he could get his hands on, proclaiming that I would continue to get beaten until I stopped crying and took it "like a man". This was a routine part of my cult training as a child, getting beaten until my insides were dried out from crying and I physically could not cry anymore; until my diaphragm was convulsing from the pain. If I'd been found with a book like Kobabe's Gender Queer, I probably would have been put in the hospital.
I wouldn't wish my experience on the most evil of men. I absolutely understand why many who experienced gender violence in their youth simply decide to leave the entire concept of gender behind. Personally however, my path has been to unapologetically be myself and help other young men understand that they can embrace and define masculinity in whichever way they choose. To take back the reigns of masculinity from violent, sexually represeed psychopaths. The number of pissed off parents racked up along the way is just a measure of my success in this endeavor.
Visual depictions of hardcore sex acts where penetration is clearly visible = "sexuality". One wonders if anything at all can be pornography with your definitions.
Again, not all sexuality is pornography, and an inability to recognize that does not serve as evidence toward the contrary.
According to Oxford,
sex is "sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse.",
and pornography is "printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings".
If you are erotically stimulated by even the sight of sexual organs or sexual activity, that is a problem you need to deal with, but please do not project your perspective onto others. Many other people are able to look at such things and understand the message being conveyed. Nuance between words is not something we can just hand-wave away when it doesn't suit our argument. Sex and pornography are categorically different things.
It's shameful and sexually repressive to teach people that any form of sexual activity is pornographic. Or that children should wait until they are out of the house, away from parental supervision, to learn even the most basic things about sexuality. It's incredible to me sometimes to think about how much things have shifted back and forth in the last 100 years. In the 80's, you'd often find PG-rated movies containing nudity or sexual references. What happened, why have we slid back?
You would've had a hard time in my high school Sex Ed class, which I personally thought was still too censored and Puritan-influenced.
>and pornography is "printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity
The example I originally provided, that you and everyone else responded to contains the explicit display of both sexual organs and fellatio. It is indisputable, I gave detailed explanation how to see it for yourself in the book in question.
The depiction of fellatio, a type of sexual activity, is not inherently pornographic.
I would direct you toward my previous two comments and reiterate that your inability to understand the difference does not mean there is not a difference.
>I'm sure this could have been massively helpful to a few kids in my high school, and probably de-stigmatizing for a few others. Certainly worth pissing off a few parents.
That's great, then they can go to the public library and read it. Hopefully a teacher or guidance counsler can recommend it. It doesn't mean the federal government needs to pay for it to be in a K-5 school.
>Hopefully a teacher or guidance counsler can recommend it.
Not according to this bill.
>...prohibiting use of funds under the act “to develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials...
I realize I'm coming into a back-and-forth that grew organically, but... how does this intent tie back to a What Justifies Censorship argument? It sounds like:
1. If I think what they say is bad for youths
2. And it seems the original author thought it would influence youths in the way I don't like
3. Then it can be censored
Is that it? Because if so... well, I've got some bad news about the Bible, and that's not even getting into the trustworthiness of the agency making determination 1 and 2.
