Protecting perversity
For the American Library Association, anything goes, anytime, anywhere, and at any age. Is it coming to a library near you?
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, Sept, 1997

One can only imagine the outcry from gun-control advocates if the National Rifle Association promoted every citizen’s right to any weapon at all, from grenades to nuclear missiles. That would be the result if the NRA carried the Second Amendment to its absolute extreme.

But with regard to the First Amendment, the American Library Association (ALA) is plunging to new depths defending absolute freedom of speech.

Against parental rights

The ALA’s extreme agenda includes a child’s right to borrow any book. Its “Library Bill of Rights” says, “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of… age…”

To avoid misunderstanding, the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom has written numerous papers defending the right of minors to access all media regardless of content or parental desires.

In “Free Access to Libraries for Minors,” they write, “The ALA opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users.”

ALA briefs state that it is not the role of libraries to act in the role of parents. But they also seem to be opposed to parents acting in that role.

For example, the ALA says parents cannot be told what books their children check out because this infringes upon children’s privacy rights.

In fact, last year when Congress considered the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act, the ALA worked diligently to defeat the measure.

“Censorship”

The ALA regards even the mildest concerns about the suitability of a book for a given age or community as “censorship.” To silence troublemakers, they hold Banned-Books Week annually in September. The event purports to show how many books have been “banned” from U.S. libraries.

The name is misleading. Only a fraction of reported cases involve banning books. Truthfully, most incidents must be contorted to conform to the ALA’s need to expose censorship. Oftentimes someone merely complained about a book.

This definition of censorship has filtered down to Kentucky’s Department of Libraries and Archives. It reported 22 “intellectual freedom incidents” in 17 public libraries in ‘95-96. Yet no books were banned. Most complaints were informal. Several librarians were genuinely embarrassed that the state considered these incidents a threat.

The ALA also successfully spearheaded a lawsuit against the Communications Decency Act, which the Supreme Court struck down in June. Implicit in ALA’s objection to the Act is their belief that, not only did it violate the right of adults to access materials, but it also breached children’s rights to view pornography (thankfully, rights which courts have not granted).

Non-library activism

The ALA also advocates issues unconnected to libraries. Thus it has become a powerful voice for the extreme agenda of the radical left.

For instance, in 1992, the ALA opposed Colorado’s Amendment two which sought to preclude special rights for homosexuals.

The ALA ignores local standards, which courts recognize in matters like pornography.

By disregarding the moral underpinnings of U.S. communities, they arrogantly “force their values” — amoral values — on the rest of America, while decrying any opposition.

Despite their efforts, Kentucky libraries remain reasonably independent of the ALA. Citizen involvement is the key to ensuring that local libraries remain community-centered.

When the ALA began its quest for intellectual freedom in the 1940s, one had to look no further than Nazi Germany to see what would happen if a national government began censoring books. The Nazis destroyed legitimate literary works that advocated alternatives to their monopoly on power.

What the American Library Association can’t seem to recognize is that America is not Nazi Germany. There is no monopoly on power, nor can they see that the intellectual and cultural value of Playboy or Madonna’s Sex is not remotely close to that of the Federalist Papers or Shakespeare’s plays.

Furthermore, individuals, with rare exceptions, are not national governments, and they should have the right to express legitimate concerns. That, after all, is what the First Amendment is all about!
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst