Alabama Bill Targets 'Gay' Books

And this isn't simply referring to Blue Boy magazine, either. From KUTV.com courtesy of Orcinus:

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."

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.

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This is no surprise, seeing as how it's happening in Alabama. Still, it's quite disturbing. It's one thing to simply target gay themes, which is also wrong, but quite another to target gay authors, writing about subjects that have nothing to do with homosexuality. It takes a step beyond the usual content based censorship and moves into new and frightening territory: this bill is proclaiming that people shouldn't read what people have to say simply because of who they are. It is also very ironic that under this proposed law libraries couldn't offer, say, The Glass Menagerie, but would still presumably be able to stock copies of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf.

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