Wisconsin in Nazi mode

Baby Be-Bop the book is, in the words of author Francesca Lia Block, "a very sweet, simple, coming-of-age story about a young man's discovery that he's gay." A copy of it in the local library wouldn't normally obset anyone, except in this case the library is in West Bend, Wisconsin (to the coasters better known as "the middle of nowhere"). Then it's a major problem.

Read on Salon how, after the library board unanimously voted to leave this and other books where they are, despite protestations from the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries (*chortle* You'd think they'd be worried about terrorists bombing the library. I mean, with bombs), another group of outraged citizens took over the operation.

But the controversy isn't over. Now an outfit called the Christian Civil Liberties Union has gotten in on the act, suing the library for, according to the West Bend Daily News, "damaging" the "mental and emotional well-being" of several individuals by displaying "Baby Be-Bop" in the library. Since attempts to label the novel as "pornographic" have failed, the (somewhat shadowy) CCLU hopes to brand it as hate speech, in part because it contains the word "nigger." The complainants, described as "elderly" by the newspaper, claim that Block's novel is "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic] and anti-Christian." They want the library's copy not only removed but publicly burned.

(More on the claim of the plaintiffs here.)

What a mob of pathetic losers. One thing is calling themselves anything with 'civil liberties union' - people like these consistently abhor the ACLU. Another is that they insist on a real-life public book burning. Have these people read no history at all?

Dirk [book's main character] is beaten by gay bashers but steadfastly clings to the possibility of finding love.

I trust little Baby Be-Bop will prevail in the same manner in Wisconsin. I predict tolerance will defeat homophobia the same way in the end, though in America it looks very much like it means waiting for the conservative, Christian, elderly, zealots to die out.

If Wisconsinites don't stand up and boo their Christian retirees with nothing better to do than imitating Nazis, then I fear it'll be quite a while before Wisconsin becomes somewhere.