It’s easy to assume you can teach a fanatic that censorship is wrong. You may think that explaining to an American citizen that censorship is un-American, that it flies in the face of what the Founders of America wanted. But that would be wrong, wouldn’t it? It would be like trying to explain that Jesus wasn’t a gun-totin’ anti-LGBTQ+, PRO-Book-Banning, Pro-Persecuting Adultery advocate. That’s because some use religion as a cover for violent, fascist beliefs that ignorant, brainwashed Americans are espousing.

I have met many believers who don’t support fascist stances. That are against protecting guns to the detriment of children (e.g. Uvalde ISD tragedy, and others). I have met many believers that support the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause AND support the 2nd Amendment within reason.

Religious fanatics are working to censor art, freedom of expression, and the right of people to enjoy “soul freedom.” It is ironic:

Rhode Island and Pennsylvania had been founded explicitly on the idea of religious freedom which they defined as the right to individual conscience. Baptists called it “soul freedom.” Source: Frederick Clarkson (2007),  History is Powerful Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters, Political Research Associates.

The Changing Message of the Founders

We know that Christian Nationalists (and the word “Christian” has nothing to do with what traditionally has been a Jesus-centric, loving physical representation of God, that challenged the persecutors of an female accused of adultery) are working hard to engage in revisionist history. For these radical extremists pursuing a campaign of book banning, insurrection supporters (Jan. 6), the Founders were white men who would take their side in damning women and free speech and texts they disagreed with.

Today, conflicts most often arise from Christian nationalism, the anti-democratic notion that America is a nation by and for Christians alone. At its core, this idea threatens the principle of the separation of church and state and undermines the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It also leads to discrimination, and at times violence, against religious minorities and the nonreligious. 

Christian nationalism is also a contributing ideology in the religious right’s misuse of religious liberty as a rationale for circumventing laws and regulations aimed at protecting a pluralistic democracy, such as nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQI+ people, women, and religious minorities. (Source: Amanda Tyler, as cited in American Progress, available 8/26/2022)

It is this belief that makes one be nonreligious…who wants to associate and stand with violent, radical, nutcases in Texas, Florida, and other spaces, as they pervert the Word of God? For them, the goal is to say, “It’s NOT me who’s responsible for what’s right or wrong. It’s God’s word, it’s tradition, it’s society’s values over many years.” Then they proceed to use God, the Bible to justify their acts of atrocity, much like every other religion that has persecuted people who failed to adhere to their beliefs.

In fact, I was shocked to hear this argument from someone speaking at a school board meeting (sorry, I don’t have the link for you) and who was recorded and shared on Twitter. 

The Root of the Problem

Where is this coming from? Why now, do we see such a concerted effort by Christian Nationalists to control and make their beliefs the law of the land? It would be easy to say, “Human beings, out of fear of what they don’t understand, act in ways that are not loving and representative of the God they espouse to others.” For them, the Angry God of the Old Testament, his righteous wrath will wash away the transgressions of the unclean, the impure, those who love in unapproved ways (e.g. LGBTQ+), etc.

I am reminded of Westley’s Redemptive Intimacy again.Here’s an excerpt from his book, :

In other words, Christianity is devolving into religion, where people are told what to do by an angry God from a holy text that can’t be changed, even though it is a reflection of flawed understanding of our relationship with God. In that flawed understanding, all sorts of bad things are possible yet blessed by God because that “god” is our made-up version of Him.

In whose interest is it to have people angry, bearing figurative pitchforks to winnow out the chaff from the wheat, ready to cast into the eternal fire of hell, the downtrodden readers of forbidden texts, the pink-haired monsters that seek to “groom” children?

Follow the money trail. By destroying public schools and libraries, the Republican GOP and those whose interests they serve, push people into haves and have nots, ensure a generation of ignorants that they can put into debt and force to work as they see fit because they need money.

The most violent expressions, such as what we saw at the January 6 insurrection, get most of the attention. But the more subtle ones—like state legislative efforts to promote the teaching of the Bible in public schools or to require the posting of “In God We Trust” in public schools and other public places—are also dangerous in that they perpetuate the false narrative that to be a true American one must be Christian—and often a certain type of Christian. 

Christian nationalism undergirds a number of threats to religious freedom, including anti-Muslim bigotry, anti-Semitism, and government-sponsored religion. (Source: Amanda Tyler, as cited in American Progress, available 8/26/2022)

The word socialism is often tossed around as one of the evils of modern times. What’s the word for businesses buying Republicans (and Democrats) to focus people on divisive issues, using religion as a cover for their evil-doing (demonizing any human being is evil)?

Christian nationalism is a political ideology and cultural framework that seeks to merge American and Christian identities. It heavily relies upon a mythological founding of the United States as a “Christian nation,” singled out for God’s special favor. It is not a religion, but it intersects with Christianity in its use of Christian symbols and language.

But the “Christian” in Christian nationalism is more about identity than religion and carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and militarism.  (Source: Amanda Tyler, as cited in American Progress, available 8/26/2022)

Source: BookRiot

Censorship

Last night, I had the opportunity to chat with librarians and educators a bit more knowledgeable than I about censorship. I did a lot of listening. One of the resources that popped up in the conversation was a website called, BookRiot. BookRiot shares a whole bunch of anti-censorship articles. Here’s one quote from a blog written by Nikki DeMarco:

Keeping books out of the hands of students is one way that people want to control minors’ access to information. Book censorship has steadily been on the rise, and challenges quadrupled in 2021. 

Couple this with the recent attack on teachers and attacks on school libraries, and it raises the question: what rights do students actually have to access books? 

(Source: Nikki DeMarco, Bookriot, Available 8/26/2022)

One of the excerpts in this article well-worth reading include the following:

Schools change which books are included and excluded from curriculum regularly based on pedagogical reasoning that material needs to be age appropriate. In Virgil v. School Board of Columbia County, the Court of Appeals agreed with the school board’s decision to remove selected portions of texts from a humanities curriculum. 

By upholding the removal, the court emphasized that the challenged texts remained in the school library allowing for what the Pico case called “voluntary inquiry” where the students could seek out the materials that were omitted in the classroom if they were curious. 

Students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate” (Tinker v. Des Moines), but they aren’t necessarily available in the classroom either. (Source: Nikki DeMarco, Bookriot, Available 8/26/2022)

That’s an eye-opener, isn’t it? The school board can remove books that aren’t age-appropriate from the curriculum used in the classroom, but the books must remain in the library for curious students:

“Students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate.” Tinker v. Des Moines (1968)

Whether it’s the State or Church, human beings should not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients. That is, students have to have access to other viewpoints. And, that happens in the library, not the classroom.

The literary and free speech organization PEN America is raising the alarm about Tennessee’s Collierville school district removing 327 books from library shelves that feature LGBTQ+ characters and themes, in spite of there being no policy or restriction requiring their removal. 

In total, 327 previously approved books from notable authors including Rick Riordan and Audre Lorde – along with Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper series, the subject of a show on Netflix – were removed from district libraries. Administrators sorted them into tiers based on how much the books focus on LGBTQ+ characters or storylines. (Source: PEN America)

See complete list of banned books by state

EveryLibrary

Another fascinating resource is Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson’s (@TasslynM) effort. Check out the EveryLibrary Institute:

The EveryLibrary Institute and EveryLibrary are partnering with Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson, an independent researcher focused on the networks, organizations, and individual actors who are leading book banning and book challenge efforts in our nation’s school libraries and public libraries.

Dr. Magnusson’s spreadsheet of book bans and challenges has been available online since October 2021 to aid library organizations, library staff, education stakeholders, and concerned parents. Her findings have helped numerous school libraries and public libraries. Through this partnership, EveryLibrary and ELI are supporting her ongoing research and monitoring as well as aiding in the discoverability of these valuable resources online. 

All of these resources continue to be available free of charge to aid local and statewide efforts to defend the freedom to read, the role of libraries in communities and schools, and, most especially, support the people and ideas the books represent.Find it online.

A Poem

I enjoyed Mandie Hines (2019) full poem, but I’ll only share the first and last two stanzas, but you can read the full poem online:

It creeps in like
fog at dusk
under the guise
of protection.

These words,
these themes,
these ideas
are not suitable
for children.

 ***

The broad strokes of
censorship are seized
to oppress the minority,
grind down the powerless, and
silence the truth.

In the starkness of day,
everything has been
sanitized
and as the horror sinks in,
we walk around with duct-taped
mouths and fear in
our eyes.

 Our children need more soul freedom.