First, a quick look at the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
The gay-themed book Revolutionary Voices, an anthology of first-person works by youths in New Jersey, has been quietly pulled from library shelves in Burlington County, N.J., and a high school … Jim Walsh of the Courier-Post writes … that the decision was made in the spring, but is triggering a bit of a furor now with the release of e-mails on the issue by county library director Gail Sweet.
In one of the released messages, Sweet asks a library employee, "How can we grab the books so that they never, ever get back into circulation? Copies need to totally disappear (as in not a good idea to send copies to the book sale).
" When another employee asks why the award-winning book was being removed, Sweet responded, "Child pornography."
The book was pulled from the county library and from the library at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly after objections from Beverly Marinelli, a Lumberton woman and a member of the 9/12 Project, a conservative group founded by Fox News Channel pundit Glenn Beck.
Marinelli … has described the book as "pervasively vulgar and obscene."
See also, "Et tu, Mary Minow? Then Fall, Gail Sweet!" and especially comments 2 and 4.
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