Censorship in Wisconsin--Librarians losing jobs?

Me neither, Dick. The man who hugged me in the cafe worked with my husband's company, which is how we know him. Some people don't even know what to say to me, thinking I should be dead by now, but he did.

Alice, I just think stuff happens behind closed doors I don't care to discuss or think about either, and I was discriminated against for being straight.

Tolerance of differences is important. Tolerance of illness, of disability.

Questions to think about regarding issues teens face:

What if you went on an overnight field trip with your school and you found out your roommate thought of you as more than a friend?

What if your father was gay and others called him names in front of you and you loved him?

What if other kids made assumptions and called you names just because of interests you had like cooking or sewing that were more often associated with girls?

Carol

Im against the "agendas" of all special interest groups taking a foothold in the Libraries. If freedom of speech is to be respected, then it is an all or nothing scheme. Anything less sends us down the roads to bad things. Let the people choose for themselves without being led in one direction or the other by any special interest group, whomever they may be.
So, I guess that Im against the following issues in this thread:
A...any group stocking the libraries with an overabundance of any type of slanted books.
B...Censorship and firings over one side not agreeing with the other sides activities.

What gives?
If I like frogs, and if I stack the libraries full of frog lover books, and then my neighbor, who hates frogs, gets me fired over it, then this is a fiasco for both sides. Much ado about nothing.

I just have one question, are these buffoons on both sides drawing a public paycheck? I think that we should just fire everybody concerned on both sides and send them to a re-education camp and...ooops. Forgot myself, didnt I? (just kidding)

Now you got me going-- I don't believe anyone is born a homosexual.

I think they may have that tendency though.
Sex is a continuim.
Some people lean more to homosexual than to hetrosexual.

A person becomes a homosexual by engaging in homosexual behaviour.

I had a friend who was married with two children. To everyone's shock she left her husband for a lady friend.

From a review of The Geography Club.

"Who said there's no market for a book about gay teens? A lot of people,actually, which is one reason the success of the new young adult novel Geography Club is so sweet.

The story is about a group of closeted gay high school students who band together to form their own club, which they name the Geography Club so no one will guess its true purpose. The story is told from the perspective of Russel, a boy who hasn't come out to anyone but himself and struggles with a crush on the school jock.

When he finally tells his best friend Min that he's gay, he discovers that she's been keeping a secret of her own: her three-year relationship with a lesbian on the school's soccer team.

[size=12]Min isn't a lesbian, though,she's bisexual--which is where the book is particularly cutting-edge."[/size]

________________________________________________

Dick, maybe you read something different than I did. This sounds as if the book is promoting a gay lifestyle to teens, using words such as "sweet" to make everyone think it's great.

My opinion is that the "gay" lifestyle is not something I want to advocate to my children. I have as much right to that opinion as any of you have to yours. It is not bigoted nor ignorant to disagree with those who are avidly promoting being gay as a great way of life. I don't see it that way, and while I don't discredit any of you for your own opinions, I don't see how mine is any less valid. I think marriage should be between a man and a woman, and if there is no place for religion in our schools, then there is certainly no place for a gay agenda.

We've known for a while that most of us here don't see eye to eye on every issue, and I'm content with that. This is just another of those cases. You are all free to believe what you wish, so am I, and that is exactly the way it should be. You can't say that my opinion has no value without understanding that if that is so, then neither does yours.

Alice, I think you are wrong about that. So do many medics.

Don, I agree that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Only when it becomes discriminatory do I disagree and I imagine you do too. I don't believe, though, that anyone ever became homosexual by reading a book.

if there is no place for religion in our schools, then there is certainly no place for a gay agenda


The schools should leave this to the parents.
Parents need to do something.

I think the problem is that the open gay community wants to promote their lifestyle over all others, and they do everything they can to make it attractive to teens. This is done with the consent of many around the country. Those who are afraid to speak out are also consenting.

I know a lot of people who are gay, and they are no more intelligent, happy, carefree, or wonderful than anyone else. But this is the way they are portrayed. Movies, television, everything we see makes the gay lifestyle seem super attractive, and the book that was mentioned in the message board is just more of the same.

I don't like any kind of censorship, but I do think the people in that community have the right to decide what is in their library. If most of them don 't want books that promote the gay lifestyle, then they should not be there.

I agree with Alice that homosexuality is a choice, not something you are born with. I also think it is something you can choose not to do. I ALSO think that the lifestyle is now being promoted so openly as so wonderful, that it is attracting people, and yes, Dick, I think some books, such as this one here, have a lot to do with that.

I agree with Don.

Dick,

I could be wrong--wouldn't be the first or the last time.

Is a person a thief if they wish to steal something?
In my opinion--NO!

They are a thief when they steal the object.

My friend was obviously bi-sexual--she could have stayed wth her husband and children.

Dick,

That is also the view among mental health professionals. I have known people who tried the more acceptable life style and it didn't work for them. I do believe there are some who choose, but as a whole I think it is not a choice for others, and the alternative is to live life alone.

In the olden days men lived together and my parents told me it was because they were friends and didn't want to live alone. Maybe they knew different, but maybe not.

I am one who doesn't always contemplate what goes on behind closed doors of consenting adults, but looks at what I see.

When I first went to the university in 1980, I was affected by open affection between men, and I have difficulties with women whose femininity seems to have left them, but I'm working on figuring out more acceptance of the above.

I do not think, and I disagree here, that the gay lifestyle is being promoted. I do not think some choose it anymore than my granddaughter chose to be visually impaired or I chose to have cancer. There are those in the medical field who feel this way also. It is not an easy lifestyle, but a difficult one. There is sadness, frustration, hurt feelings and confusion.

Carol

I agree with myself,

We are in a recession--why should someone lose their job over books?

My parents were the boss at our house. I couldn't even read fiction.

I am still alive!

Alice, I lived in a very protected home. I wasn't forbidden much, but just wasn't exposed to much. But I survived the world and illness and lots that was not so nice.

I remember reading some stories in English in high school that were very upsetting to me, and another girl and I went and spoke to the teacher about them. She explained they were fiction, but I was not sure that made me feel any better.

Your parents might have been very wise, Alice.

Carol

I have no quarrel with my parents.
They did what they felt was the rght thing to do. They did not cause anyone to lose their job.

I agree with their approach. I don't think they needed to ban fiction, but it was their call.

Oh all right--I was once the School Board Chairperson--had a kid in high school--not a charming situation.

Because of conflcts, I removed my kid from the school.
I did not try make the school conform to my wishes.

In retrospect about half of the crew should have left but, it was far easier the way I did it.

I believe like Marie, that God loves all these people.

I worked for a school my kids attended. Not a good idea, but we all survived.

There is a lot of stuff out there that shows kids much worse than books on a gay lifestyle.

When I was young, a lot of people pretended a lot of things.

Ah, how things have changed.


Carol

I definitely believe God loves gay people. I love them myself--I love straight people too and do not wish to hear about their sex lives.

I have one final question--how about the folks who have sex with their animals--are they born that way?

That is scary Alice, and I don't think they were born that way.

I never ran into any of those people, not that I know of or care to know of.

Carol

[quote="Carol Troestler"]That is scary Alice, and I don't think they were born that way.

I never ran into any of those people, not that I know of or care to know of.

Carol[/quote



Very good answer, Carol.
Let us suppose animals can speak and read English
They would get together and say:

"God loves us.

We were born that way.


We wlll march down the street and we will have respect."

Picture if you will some poor donkey who was not allowed to marry his true love.

Heartrending situation!

Okay, you are embarassed and so am I. As a child I never heard of gay people.

Then the social engineers went to work--now they are respectable folks--give the animalists 100 years they will marry also.

By the way I don't hate any of these people--It would be nice if all sick people had access to free housing and medical care that the HIV affected folks enjoy.

I thought this was about information and what is or is not appropriate for children. It isn't about gay rights.

There is way too much information that should be read by adults only that is now accesible to impressionable minds: pornography, gay literature, sex education. This is inappropriate and confusing for adolescents who make bad decisions because of their inexperience. When Jean Brodie tried to put old heads onto young shoulders, the result was catastrophic.

Recently, seventeen girls under the age of eighteen from the same high school all fell pregnant at the same time. If ever proof were needed that sex education isn't working, this must be it.

Young people's lives are ruined if they are made to grow up too quickly. Yes gay people should have rights and young adults should learn about contraceptives and adults should be allowed to buy and view pronography. BUT CHILDREN NEED TO BE PROTECTED. I agree with Don. The community should be allowed to protect their children the way they see fit and not be forced to follow a national trend. Especially when the effects of that trend are detrimental to ALL children.

Okay I agree too! Since the parents will not do it--somebody needs to.

E. Don, You are right!

And parents and grandparents and counselors need to really care, to listen to concerns. I know I should have done a lot more listening. That is one of my regrets in life. I am sometimes shocked by what I hear from grandchildren, but I listen, make comments, and try to live my life the best I know how to be a model to them.

I think my own children were often afraid to say what they had heard or questioned, but my grandchildren do not seem to be afraid to tell me anything.

And we have bookshelves filled with books in our home, and there is not a one I would mind my grandchildren or children reading. That is my best. I don't have the books in contention at the library, but this is my private collection and one I can definitely control.

Carol

I'm glad I was lucky enough to grow up and mature under the roughest possible conditions in one of the meanest industrial areas in the country. I'm glad that to get to school I had to walk along a street where prostitutes lined up waiting for customers. I got to know that many of them were fine people who had fallen on rough times. I'm glad that the building 20 yards from the school playground housed an X-rated theater and a few doors down the street was an adult book store that allowed kids inside if they so desired. I preferred to stay outside talking to some of the hookers.
I'm glad that two openly gay men were in my rifle company. They were great guys and excellent combat soldiers.
I'm glad I got to experience the evils of prejudice in towns near Army camps in the South and I'm glad I later came to know half a dozen Black Muslims I called friends. I'm glad I got to know numerous murderers and professional criminals. I'm glad I have known and liked many gay men and lesbians. I'm glad I never looked down on any of these various types of people.
I'm glad because I have learned a lot more from them than from self-styled "nice" people. I have benefitted from the various experiences. Perhaps it is enjoyable to feel superior to others. I'm glad I've never tried it. Had I been less fortunate, I suppose I might have.

Dick,

I am glad for you too.

Whatever your folks did or didn't do, it was rght.

Is that what you wanted for your daughter -- that she should be as lucky as you? Did you want your daughter to walk past a line of hookers waiting for customers on her way to school. Did you think it would be good for her to talk to prostitutes and find out that they had hearts of gold and had merely fallen on hard times (more likely to be earning money to feed a drug habit these days)?

Would a strip club next to your daughter's school be acceptable?

Would you want children to experience the same things you did as an adult or would you want them to grow up first?