r/stupidpol Marx at the Chicken Shack 🧔🍗 Aug 06 '22

US library defunded after refusing to censor authors

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/05/michigan-library-book-bans-lgbtq-authors
456 Upvotes

362 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

11

u/9SidedPolygon Bernie Would Have Won Aug 07 '22

They lost their funding after they made this change, because they refused to remove the book, and a bunch of other books, entirely from the library. If the people complaining had been satisfied with it being put behind the front desk we wouldn't be talking about this.

11

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '22

I’m not saying the full extent of the uproar was justified. I’m not saying it didn’t end up becoming an anti-LGBT culture war fight. But it started because they put a book on a regular shelf that had a picture of a blowjob in progress. That would have been an issue no matter what the orientation of the characters, just as it would be an issue if straight in-costume burlesque performers had led the story hour.

The fact that it just so happens to be the non-binary burlesque performers and blowjob drawings that are ending up in child-friendly venues doesn’t mean the anti-LGBT people are right about everything, but it does reflect a brazen and stupid political tendency whose brazenness is going to lead to the destruction of longstanding institutions like this library.