Alabama and them nasty queers

From AMERICAblog comes this CBS news item about how a politician in Alabama wants to ban works by gay authors.

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."

Do the people of the good state of Alabama know what they voted for? Being told what you can read was a staple of the Goebbels media machine in Nazi Germany. (And yes, Jerry dude, it is censorship. Look it up in a dictionary. Are dictionaries acceptable? I bet they have words about queers in them. Uh-oh! They must go!)

Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters.

Oh my God! Lesbian characters?!

Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can't define what a classic is.

I bet he can't. (I know, that's a cheap shot, but these NewAgeNazis make my skin crawl.)

Librarian Donna Schremser fears the "thought police," would be patrolling her shelves.

"And so the idea that we would have a pristine collection that represents one political view, one religioius view, that's not a library,'' says Schremser.

Jerry can't define a "classic," I rather doubt he can define "library" either. In Jerry's world, a library is endless shelves of enriching tales like My Pet Goat, no doubt.

But in book after book, Allen reads what he calls the "homosexual agenda,"
and he's alarmed.

You know, generally speaking & all, people tend to see what they want to see. Jerry, honey, you married?

"It's not healthy for America, it doesn't fit what we stand for," says Allen. "And they will do whatever it takes to reach their goal."

They sure will. It's just that we're thinking of different groups of people here. You define "they" one way, and I define "they" as "go look in the mirror, buddy, you know you want to ..."

Is it too much to ask for protection against those who desire nothing more than to impose their rigid will and "value system" on the rest of us? At what point will this be a problem recognized for what it is, a particularly nasty form of theocratic fascism?