The ALA is hurting our children

[Pope Lando II]

It's a made-up controversy.

As are most of the controversies opposed by the extreme right.

This one isn't entirely fabricated, in that the ALA does support the inclusion gay/lesbian/whatever literature in collection development and presents a related award for best gay fiction/nonfiction at its conference (week after next (July 13) for example). What isn't true is that more than a handful of people feel threatened by it. I haven't seen news of any serious complaints.

[Treznor]

because reading is evil

"Readin' rots the brain."
- George Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

[Arizona Nova]

As someone educated in a Christian school and currently taking a masters of library science at a secular university, I can see both sides of the coin, OP, and I can tell you you couldn't be more wrong. Librarians, and the ALA, are ardent defenders of intellectual freedom; this means for absolutely everyone, whether it is religious fundamentalists, hardline communists, or everyone in between, no matter how out of the mainstream their worldview may be. While it may make it seem that distasteful, even potentially harmful material is protected, even promoted, by libraries, it is just as much a guarantee to you and your children that a (good) librarian is never going to consciously suppress your own worldview.

That said, there is still definitely room for a librarian with an agenda to unknowningly oppress in the name of intellectual freedom. As the article states, targeting fundamentalists as the sole perpetrators of oppression in the modern world is tantamount to hate speech. Suppression of intellectual freedom is a hallmark of extremists of every color, throughout history. While it is true that religious fundamentalists - nigh incontrivertibly, in the Middle East - have suppressed intellectual freedom at times, it does strike me as irresponsible to lay it on them as the sole hazard in our times. Be that as it may, it's still irresponsible to claim that the views one librarian are the views of the ALA.

That said, the email and the article it was based upon both look to be wrote by complete quacks. If you're going to get your information from unpublished/unreviewed sources, OP, at least get it from a blog, even a fundamentalist blog, not chain emails. The latter kind of blog may still be an echo chamber but at least some of the better ones might have a care for legibility. Chain emails are absolutely the lowest denominator; there is more accountability and debate on the wall of a bathroom stall than a chain email.

It's encouraging to see so many of my fellow Americans here coming out swinging for the ALA and libraries; for all its defects, the public school system has at least instilled in you a love for the freedoms our constitution provides. I also want to tell you all, though, that viewpoints like that article are the trollish fringe for the fundamentally inclined Christians.

vvv A thousand times this

[Grays Harbor]

Haha. Libraries are the new target for fundamentalists, then? I've never been so proud to be an ALA member. The content of public libraries necessarily varies from one service area to another, but I've honestly never seen anything objectionable in any library I've ever been to, nor in five years of part-time stack/circulation work done during my high school and college years. It's a made-up controversy.

its not just "christian fundamentalists" who push the 'ban it' issue. at one time or another there have been attempts to ban books based on ideological, religious or moral grounds from both the right and left. Extremists wanting to control, limit or ban information and liturature contrary to their beliefs is nothing new. Currently, along with the christian fundies wanting to limit or ban books are the muslim fundies also wanting to ban or limit books as well. Throughout history there have been book bannings.

I applaud the ALA for resisting this latest trend.

Freedom to Read
Book Banning
Beacon for Freedom
First Ammendment Center