Spectacle versus Reason

Censorship has no place in America. Regardless of whatever camouflage it receives, denying free expression runs counter to the ideals that underly our society. The ability to make a personal choice for you and your family must be coupled with the requirement that your choice applies to your immediate circle. Attempting to limit the choices available to a community has no place in our society. Remember that many facing heresy trials and the rigidity of the Puritans and other religious sects braved relocation to a new continent in search of personal freedom and opportunities. This forms the bedrock of our democratic experiment.

The current move to ban books is not an organic, grassroots, locally based movement but is spawned by influences on a national level filtering down and provoking unthinking outrage. Not only does this promote judgments on the choices in the lives of other people, but it has morphed into personal attacks against library administrators. The methods utilized in staging the recent spectacle at the Board of Supervisors meeting make it appear to be more broad-based than the numbers reveal.

Human biology, nature, and psychology are not so easily explained and restricted as some would like to pretend. Attempting to impose black-and-white choices on the diversity of human experience runs counter to human nature. Diversity should be celebrated for its contribution to the strength and breadth of the American experience.

The similarity that runs through most religious thinking admonishes us to love our brothers and sisters as they are and not to expect everyone to conform to our ideals.

Steve Foreman
Warren County