No, But Gays Will Defend to Their Death Your Right to Say It

AHAHAHA before I even clicked on the link I was going to introduce you all to safelibraries.org. That guy shows up in the comments of banned book stories a lot and I like to greet him cheerily every time, just to creep him out a little bit, because I know he’s coming back to read the responses.

Here’s his masterpiece explaining how the ALA is made up of “porn pushers.”

Add this gay to the “wish they’d just drop dead already I ain’t defending shit for them” list.

What a fantastic insight! I’d say he’s definitely on to something here.

And what a fascinating life he must lead: crammed full of first nights and penthouses; summers on the Vineyard surrounded by a coterie of friends as interesting and accomplished as himself. I must follow finette’s linque and congratulate the WND poster’s aperçu.

Unless.. oh God forbid the wing nuts ever discover irony! No. Impossible! Next you’ll be telling me is that Sarah Palin® is really an hispanic drag queen from the Bronx named Danny and that Kristol’s been having us on.

@finette: Wow. That is one crazy motherfucker with WAY too much time on his hands. I did not know you could get that much tiny text on one web page. Oh sure, if you’re someone like noje. But not some poor schlub in Wilkes-Barre.

Make all the ad hominem comments you wish. It doesn’t change that “banned” author #9 on the ALA’s 2010 top 10 list essentially admitted the ALA knew of other books more challenged than hers but they choose to put hers on the list for reasons unrelated to numerical accuracy. I recorded her saying so. I’m just the messenger.

And finette was wrong with his “porn pusher” statement, as usual. See for yourself: http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2011/02/looking-for-alaska-is-not-porn.html

@SafeLibraries: Make all the ad hominem comments you wish.

There’s another kind?

And thanks for dropping by! We rarely get the opportunity to abuse our opponents in person.

@SafeLibraries: Oh goody, you’re here! What was I wrong about? I linked to your page and said what was on it.

You were wrong about my gender, though.

@nojo, no prob.

@finette, as I explained, you said “Here’s his masterpiece explaining how the ALA is made up of ‘porn pushers.'” You are implying I am calling the ALA porn pushers, and that implication is wrong. Here is a direct quote from my page showing exactly how I define porn in the context of my saying the ALA pushes porn, as in x-rated excerpts that may be in material that is not otherwise pornography:

“The problem here is the ALA, not the book or the author. The ALA awards a pervasively vulgar book containing an x-rated section for kids twelve and up, does not provide notice as to the x-rated contents or the vulgarity, and knows its lists are used as gold standards nationwide for promoting books to children. That is the problem. That is the porn pushing I’m talking about (not the vulgarity issue). That is not what the ALA used to do, but it does now, and I have every right to point this out to the public.”

So, in works that are not otherwise porn, if you look at individual excerpts that themselves are x-rated, that’s the porn I’m talking about that the ALA pushes. Not entire works of porn as you implicate. So no, the ALA does not push porn as defined in the usual means of an entire work being porn. But it does push it in terms of x-rated excerpts of works not otherwise pornographic as a whole.

@SafeLibraries:

So by your logic, every Christian church is also a “porn pusher” since the book they revere happens to have a few naughty bits in it. Nice.

@al2o3cr Going after the Christians again. Nice. Show me in any Christian Bible “they revere” where it says, “Lara unbuttoned my pants and pulled my boxers down a little and pulled out my penis. …. And then she wrapped her hand around it and put it into her mouth.”

@SafeLibraries: “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

Now…something is either porn or it’s not. I think what you mean is obscenity, but no YA novel in existence meets that standard. (Sex, even of the gay variety, is not automatically obscene by the legal definition.)

Please read this article by frequently banned and challenged author Sherman Alexie and then tell us again why you think you or anyone else should be the arbiter of what all kids and teens can read.

@finette: Well done! I notice there’s no response…

@SafeLibraries: Let the libraries pay the authors whose work they appropriate without any recompense and then you can have an opinion. (Royalties are paid in Europe. Here we expect writers to work for nothing.) You go out and do the hard work of writing a book and you can have an opinion. To judge from the extreme crankishness (lookit: a spontaneous neologism) of your site and opinions you have clearly never connected with the real world of writing or publishing. You are merely another part-time Savonarola trying to impose your opinions on the rest of us.

The work of American artists goes round the world reminding readers in other countries that we are not all moralizing fuss-budgets giving our lives meaning through our obsessions. Get yourself an education. And get over yourself.

I would also add try working in our beleaguered libraries. Then you can have an opinion.

@finette – you said, “Please read this article by frequently banned and challenged author Sherman Alexie and then tell us again why you think you or anyone else should be the arbiter of what all kids and teens can read.”

You think there should be no arbiters? Okay, then throw out the Board of Education v. Pico case. Throw out US v. ALA. Throw out school curricula. Throw out local law. Throw out common sense.

@Benedick – you said, “You are merely another part-time Savonarola trying to impose your opinions on the rest of us.”

Okay. Then explain why the ALA finally admitted what I said about it that it plagiarized the “censorship map” it has been promoting as its own for about a year and a half.

Sheesh. Can’t we get back to Biblical sexytime?

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Israel! You naughty girl!

What of tradition, people?

I’m with Cynica on this one; it’s “bestiality.” :-P

@SafeLibraries: I’ve seen your site. I don’t believe you.

@JNOV: Darling, we’re all with Cyn. But you know how fragile noje is. What with the closet issue and the musicals issue and such as. Let’s just blame the interns and move on.

@Benedick: You saw it, but could you read it? It put me in mind of this ransom note site and this one.

@JNOV: I’m not sure how “Kate’s Playground” got in there, unless it has to do with “stiff arm salutes”, such as.

@flypaper: such as indeed

@JNOV: It’s much worse. It’s made of teeny tiny type which, though it’s not Comic Sans (am I the only one who thinks it’s kwewl? ok. whatevs) will make your eyes bleed. In fact, one is struck by the realization that that is the point: so long as no one can read the site the site is relevant. The whole thing looks like the last disclosure you got from your VISA card. It redefines small print. And if you do hunker down to try to read some of it – jocks off to finette: kudos and promissory cocktails plus snacks and foot rubs at some future stinque-in – it reeks of fundy baggerism. It’s like going to wash your undies and realizing they’re not yours and the biological stains ain’t gonna wash out easy. Or like Sarah Palin’s lipstick on your tighty-whites: how to explain it to Bristol.

All, as @BeneDick said, “I’ve seen your site. I don’t believe you.” I admit SafeLibraries.org is old and ugly. I only update my blog now.

My next post will likely be that the ALA finally, after a year and a half of pressure by me, admitted I was right in that it committed plagiarism to advance Banned Books Week. Subscribe to my blog to see this when it comes out and more.