Censorship and Fear

For my first post this week I have been trying to decide between two news stories that really drew my attention. I have finally decided I am unable to choose between them, so I offer up both to the light of intellectual freedom.

First:
School Library Journal recently reported on a high school in New Jersey that pulled a book from the school library’s shelves following complaints by members of a conservative organization. The article can be found at the SLJ website. The editor’s blog, with additional information, can be found here.

Any time I hear about well-reviewed, age-appropriate books being removed from any library because someone got uptight about them not conforming to their religious standards, my blood starts to boil. The books are there so everyone can find something that works for them, not so everyone is satisfied with every book there. The fact that the school board pulled the book from library shelves without including a logical rationale or even the process by which they considered the request is reprehensible. I am curious to know if anyone has read the book in question; based on the available information above on the Barnes & Noble website, it sounds like a good resource to help GLBT teens who are often on the fringes of our society until they reach adulthood and find a real community of their own. It saddens me that the book appears to be out of print; I hope Amy Sonnie and her publisher decide to update the mentioned resource section and republish it so a new generation of GLBT youth have the opportunity to realize they really are not alone.

Second:
Can one country’s repressive government affect freedom of thought, speech, and publication all over the world? It would appear so, based on an essay published by the New York Times last week.

Even the United States Library of Congress appears to have jumped on the “Let’s not offend the Chinese Government” bandwagon. Should American or Canadian nonprofit organizations, governmental institutions, or publishers be this scared of any foreign government? Our government and our people are great at speaking out against the atrocities perpetrated by terrorists in the Middle East, or war lords in Africa; why should we not also speak out about censorship imposed by one government that affects the whole world? How exactly does one country that has only relatively recently become a real player in world politics get powerful enough to incite so much fear?