The Point of Values?

Why do we instill values in our children?


We instill values in them to teach them right from wrong. We instill values in them so they may follow our beliefs. We instill values so they know how to make choices. We instill values in them so they'll do the right thing.


Values are, at heart, deeply held beliefs, usually about right and wrong. They are personal, but often shared by groups(such as religious denominations). They can be about any variety of subjects.



The key word is personal. It's not that you shouldn't be free to share your values, you most definitely should. It's that you shouldn't try to force your values on others. You can have debates and discussions, but most people feel as strongly on an issue as you do. And as unshakable you are on that issue they are as well. And "that issue" can be anything, literally anything. You can agree to disagree, because often trying to bring them around to your point of view is about as productive as beating yourself over the head with a stick.



The point of teaching values to children is teaching them what you believe is right and wrong, which means teaching them to recognize what is right and what is wrong. And when they see something that they recognize as wrong they will have the ability to say "I disagree with that." and not participate.



This very much applies to book censorship. Censors often say that the book(s) in question are a threat to their "values" and will lead their children to do things that go against these values. Even when they've been taught these things their entire lives.



If you've taught something to your children(I'll go with "homosexuality is bad" since that is a common topic when it comes to books) their entire lives and a book they happened to pull off a library shelf(and if you've taught them as such, why would they be pulling LGBTQ books off the shelf in the first place?) threatens to damage or change their values, that would be the failure of the parent. If your child or children are so easily strung along by influence, then you have far bigger problems. Like not letting them read Superman comics and sleep in the top bunk. If they're teenagers, then they have access to many more things unsupervised than just books in a library.



As for the "What about children who don't have parents or guardians active in their lives?" argument, you have no legal right to act in loco parentis for them. We aren't talking about saving them from being hit by car, we're talking about books. Being hit by a car is obviously dangerous. Whether a book is dangerous or not is subject to opinion.

Why Labels and/or Restrictions Won't Work

I know I said that we were done with book banning for a while, but I keep getting new blog ideas and they deserve to be let out.

Book banning is really an umbrella term, besides "banning" it can refer to restricting, labeling, reshelving or otherwise censoring books (because it's easier to say "Banned Books Week" than "Banned, Restricted, Labeled, Reshelved or Otherwise Censored Week"). Oftentimes, the censors request that the books be labeled or restricted with some sort of parental permission system in place.

In the case of restrictions, censors often request that the books be placed on a special shelf or be labeled and only be allowed to be taken out with parental supervision or permission by any minor.

A) This means lumping everyone under 18 into the same boat so to speak. If you treat a three-year-old and a 16-year-old the same you have no business doing anything that involves children.

B) Once children are old enough to go to the library by themselves, they can't take out these books with a parent or guardian there. This is a great hindrance to both the child and the parent. The parent has better things to do than supervise a child that doesn't require supervision, but they have to because a book is considered too "dangerous" for minors. And the child probably won't want to go to the library if they have to drag mommy or daddy along to check out a book. That's not what I would call encouraging literacy or a love of reading.

C) I'm making a huge generalization here but there's a lot of truth to it. If a kid is in a library, you've won. Kids who go to libraries and read books are not part of the crowd who does drugs, has casual sex, drinks or smokes underage, or otherwise does things they shouldn't be doing. Kids who are taking out books from a library are not the ones we need to have tantrums over.

D) Don't try to say "this isn't censorship". It's plain to see that saying this isn't censorship is a load of bull.

Labeling isn't too bad in theory, we have advisory labels and ratings on movies, music and other such things. But there are many differences between a movie at the cinema and a book in a library.

First of all, movie ratings are undertaken by private institutions and are not legally binding. The library is a government institution meant to serve everyone. Who would decide what would be worthy of a label? Would it simply mean that someone objected to the material within? Because libraries are meant to serve everyone, all books would require a label because virtually anything can be considered "objectionable".

If we went by sexual content, what would qualify as label-worthy? The mere mention of sex or would an act have to be described? Would LGBTQ material get labeled?

And if the aim is to discourage children from reading these books, won't putting labels on them and making a big fuss just make them all the more desirable?

The point is: You're the only one who can decide what your children can't and can't read. You have no business interfering with another child's reading. It is no different than going up to a child who is eating a bag of chips and taking them away from them because you don't want your child eating them. And chips can do far more harm than a book ever could.

Happy holidays to all.

Beeping Homosexuality

It's hard to say who I'm more disgusted with at the moment, CBS or my radio station.

As I'm sure you've heard, CBS blurred a kiss between Adam Lambert and his male keyboardist at the American Music Awards.

If that's not bad enough, they left a simulation dance move of oral sex between Adam Lambert and a dancer unblurred. If you're going to blurr something, blurr something that's, you know, actually inappropriate under broadcasting standards. As opposed to kissing. Which you can probably find on one channel or another at ANY hour of the day.

What makes this even worse, they had previously showed footage Madonna and Britney Spears tongue kissing. Their excuse is that the Madonna image has been seen frequently, but the Adam Lambert image is of "current controversy". Oh please, a seven year old could come up with a more believable excuse than that.

Political correctness aside, in terms of acceptance, girl-on-girl stuff gets off easier than guy-on-guy stuff. I don't know why this is, perhaps the long-standing unreasonable loathing of sodomy (despite the fact an awful lot of straight couples participate in that as well) or the equally long-standing ridiculous connection of gay men with pedophiles. Maybe it's the double standard that girls are allowed to break gender stereotypes as much as they want, but if guys do, they're "weird". Maybe it's all of them. Can we get a sociologist in here?

The point is that I have little doubt the blurring of the kiss was based in homophobia, and that's wrong. Hopefully CBS will take note of the public reaction.

Now, about my radio station (That's misleading, it's not "mine" it's just the one I listen to).

Just today I was listening to it and Hedley's Cha-Ching was playing. The song is a riff on reality TV and the stupidity of it. One of the shows it references is A Shot At Love with Tile Tequila, the specific lines being "Pretending to be lesbians/and Tila's playin' all of them". The word lesbian was beeped.

Yep, I didn't know it was a swear word either. (End sarcasm)

I do not know if this was a decision by the station itself or higher up, but you can be sure that they will be receiving an angry letter from me very soon. I'll update you with the results of this. Cheers.

Rant Saturday!!

(Kitty is staying over at my house and forgot her password, so this is actually her post.)

Instead of ranting this Monday, I (Kitty) shall rant on Saturday this time! Again: Please be warned of...uh...coarse language.

And the topic?

Very simple: Ginny Maziarka.

Her posts relating to "Inappropriate" books is really pissing me off! I mean honestly! Like Boy Meets Boy (Refer to Meghan's previous blog post) It's more PG then most DISNEY MOVIES!!!

And her view on Obama? "So here's the deal. Compare the above and the following with a leader from past history. Pick anyone you like. I'll pick......Hitler." (Referring to the I pledge Video)

Pretty soon she'll be wanting to ban children! It'll go like this: Because of our children and wanting to protect them, we'll have to rate Disney movies 'R' for having a kiss scene, put certain stickers on Cd's for saying 'shoot', and National Geographic magazines will need parental permission for buying them!

So, why bother with it? Why don't we just ban children? I man, it would solve all our problems. We could actually be fully free after banning children! They're the source of the problems!

Anyways, back to the Obama problem. In the I Pledge video, she tells us how controversial people are with their pledges:
"To reduce my use of plastic … use less bottled water … plant 500 trees this year … to be more green … to no longer use plastic bags at the grocery store" Because helping to save the environment is soo horrible.
"I pledge to sell my obnoxious car and buy a hybrid." Yup, helping the environment and economy is the worst thing in the world.
"I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama." Yup, that's controversial all right...Promising to be of service to Obama. That makes perfect sense.

Back to the Hitler issue,

WHY THE HELL IS SHE COMPARING HIM TO FREAKING HITLER?!?!?!

Right, because the similarities are immense.:
"The evidence that Obama = Hitler is pretty convincing. Consider: they both have brown hair, two syllables in their first name, and are taller than 5'5" yet shorter than 6'5". If that isn't evidence enough, consider that both men, celebrated Christmas, wears glasses, gives flowers to their wives, and so on. Srsly, folks, you don't have to be a dining room table to make the connection."
From Sleepless In West Bend.

"As I said earlier as well... The Nazi's also liked labeling things (Jews with the Star of David) and putting them in their own sections (concentration camps), just like Ginny."-DanBack.

"Ginny thinks any comment that doesn't buy the line of crap she is selling is disrespectful. I have a screenshot of some of the comments she has deleted - things as horribly disrespectful as' The 2nd open challenge has been issued: Please explain your objection to the completely non-sexual "Heather Has Two Mommies", and tell us what you want the library to do with it.

Pretty tame, huh? It's not like the person called her a fat homophobic Nazi bookslut. Which she totally isn't, and it would be totally wrong to call her that."-DanBack (again...Man I love that guy.)

Now back to the rant.

She says she's protecting our children from things like gays, lesbians, and all those good people, and prevents children from being exposed to things that aren't good for children in PUBLIC libraries.

She needs to think, just once about what she's doing. A library is for everyone not just for her. If she doesn't like what books are in the library GET THE HELL OVER IT! If one book may not be good for her, may help someone else. But she never thinks about that. I bet she doesn't even bother reading any of the books she tries to ban. (Or 'challenge') She just reads the blurb and says "Oh, this seems bad...I'd better try and get this banned."

And now for my conclusion: Thank you very much for reading this (If you haven't stopped half way through) and have a good...few days? Week? Whenever Either me or Meghan decide to post next. (hopefully soon) So now..Goodbye!

Boy Meets Boy Meets Censorship?

Hello! Today I'll be reviewing David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy novel and investigate why it has been challenged.

I read Boy Meets Boy and loved it. It's happy, well-written, romantic, feel-good story about high school sophmore Paul trying to win the affections of his sweetheart Noah. It's a good book with popular appeal.

It's also completely G-rated. There is kissing of the Disney Princess movie style, and there is one comment refrencing a overprotective mother thinking Paul will start "ravishing her son right there on the table" if she she doesn't keep coming in the room every five minutes, this is meant in sarcastic jest. I would have no problem whatsoever giving this to a ten year old or younger.

So why the challenge in West Bend, Wisconsin? (Although I'm unfortunately sure it's been challenged in other places)

Simple: It portrays LGBTQ lifestyles in a positive, affirming light.

Boy Meets Boy takes place in what was accurately described in one review as a "gaytopia." Everyone is completely free to be who they are and love who they want. There is no judgement, no homophobia, no angst. Save for one character whose parents are ultra-religous and not accepting of their sons' homosexuality, but even this gets a somewhat happy ending.

Other than that, there is NOTHING objectionable in the entire book. If you disapprove of anything LGBTQ then you should be able to see that this is a gay-affirming book by simply reading the description on the back, is that so hard?

This is one of the most ridiculous book challenges I have ever heard of (second to To Kill A Mockingbird being challenged because of the racial epithets used). This is not "sexually explicit" because there is nothing sexual in it. If anyone challenges it on these grounds it only shows that they haven't even read the book.

So I challenge you to go find a copy of Boy Meets Boy and read it. Because it's an excellant book, and you should form your own opinion on it, and David Levithan is cool.

Interview With A Local Bookseller

Hi, today I interviewed the owners of our local bookstore (names will be withheld for privacy). I was very, very nervous (despite the fact I've known these people forever). I apologize that it isn't very in-depth but it was nearly closing time and I didn't want to keep them from their dinner. But I did it and here it is:

Q: How long have you owned this store?
A: Owner A: Since 1991.

Q: Has anyone ever requested any material to be removed, banned or otherwise restricted from your store?
A: Owner A: Some people were questioning, but no.

Q: If someone did, how would you respond?
A: Owner A: I would try to get as much information as I could as to why they wanted it removed, and if I didn't want it removed I would tell them why.
Owner B: You've got to have books for everyone.

Q: What are your opinions on book censorship?
A: Owner A: I think because we have freedom of speech in our country everyone has to have their opinions. I don't think we need censorship because we have laws to prevent people from publishing things that are harmful or not fair or untruthful.

Q: Do you agree parents should be responsible for their own children and no one elses?
A: Owner A: Yes, exactly. It's important parents are responsible for their own kids and the state takes care of the laws.

Q: Can a book truly be classified as "vulgar" since what's vulgar to some may not be to others?
A: Owner B: Well yes, because of the language and such there are books here I wouldn't like but then someone could come in and say "Oh, that's my favourite!"

Q: Any other comments you'd like to make on this issue?
A: Owner B: We believe in a democratic country and we have a multicultural country and we believe in human rights.

Banned Books Week Extravaganza

Hello everyone, Banned Books Week has begun! We will be doing many posts throughout the week including:
- an interview with the local children's/young adult librarian
- an interview with a local bookseller
- fighting censorship on the small scale
- and a few other interesting things

And as for the argument that "No book has been banned in 50 years!" The term Banned Books Week is meant to be symbolic. I mean really, try saying Censored, Removed, Re-shelved, Burned, Challenged and Banned Books Week ten times fast. The lovely Censorship-Free Libraries blog made an excellent post about this recently.

I'm also celebrating Banned Books Week by reading Looking For Alaska by John Green and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. I'm nearly a quarter through Looking for Alaska and I have this to say: Pornography my big toe.

Some Additional Resources

Hello all. sorry we've been absent for so long. Life kind of got in the way of the internet. But we're back!

We've decided we've said as much as we can about book banning/censorship for the time being and it's time to move on to other issues. This blog is called Tolerance after all, we have a lot of issues to cover (believe me, we've got plenty of ideas). We will probably return to it at some point though, but not unless a new problem needs commentary. And for our Banned Books Week (September 26-October 3, 2009)

So here's some extra websites, blogs and videos about book banning if you still have a hankering:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHMPtYvZ8tM
Absolutely hillarious, a teeny bit of mild language.

- http://www.deletecensorship.org/homepage.html
Very interesting website! Very thorough.

- http://www.abffe.com/bbw-handbook2007.htm
Lots of ideas for participating in Banned Books Week.

- http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/
Info right from the source, and the manifesto (Here: http://bannedbooksweek.org/bbw-manifesto.htm) is especially excellent.

- http://censorfreelib.blogspot.com/
- http://asifnews.blogspot.com/
Two excellent blogs.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

The Children Think For Themselves

A common reason used for banning, removing, reclassifying, labeling or restricting books is that the controversial content within them will come into the hands of children.

This is usually used on Young Adult books, not adult books. So I'll be talking about YA books for this particular post.

Most libraries have a children's section and a young adult(or teen) section separate from eachother. The teen section is usually classified as 12 or 13 and up. There's an obvious reason for this, teens are very different from children, in interests, behaviours, experiences and especially maturity. The books reflect this. That's why the YA section is separate from the children's section to begin with.

I already covered mature content in my 'Perks of Being A Wallflower' post so I won't go on about that again.

The YA section is usually near the children's section and quite a few people seem to worry about children wandering into the YA section and reading books that aren't appropriate for them. That doesn't happen. Maybe once in a blue moon but it's hardly a common occurence. Why?

1) Children that should be reading books in the children's section aren't going to be interested in books in the YA section. They're usually of considerable length, have no pictures, are above their reading level, and often have pretty dull covers (Side note: Can we stop giving publishers stock photos of teenage girls in tank tops? Please?). They are designed to be marketed to teens, not children.

2) Children know what's inappropriate for them. A bit of personal experience here. When I was a wee one, I was honestly a little scared of the "Young Adult" and "Adult" sections. It's children's logic, "Adult means grown-up. Those are for grown-ups, they must be scary." Maybe that was just me, but most children understand what "adult" means.

3) If it bothers them, they'll put it down. Kids may not have had much life experience, but they're definitly smart enough to stop reading something if they don't like it. If it bothers them, they'll stop reading it and move onto something else. Simple as that. I did this once or twice when I was little, although the books I put down were "Scary story" books but it takes all kinds.

So frankly, all this "Think of the children!" jabber needs to stop. for the reasons above and because it's simply an excuse for censorship. If you're concerned about your children reading something inappropriate, go with them to the library and supervise them. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The public library is there to serve EVERYONE, what you consider inappropriate someone else will consider wonderful, and it is YOUR job to parent YOUR children.

Our local library actually has a policy that says that no children under 9 years of age are allowed to be left alone in the library unsupervised. Thank you.

P.S. Angel_of_Death and I are going on holiday this upcoming weekend and school starts shortly after that. Our blog posts will be slightly less frequent but we'll try to update often. Cheers :)!

Hello~!!!

Meghan: Hello all! Welcome to Tolerance!

Kitty: Hope you enjoy this blog with rants, free speech and other amazing, super cool, totally awesome, sweet things like that! =D

M: Thank you for that long line of adjectives Kitty. On this blog we'll be discussing issues such as censorship, book banning and bigotry.

K: We REALLY hope you enjoy this, even if some on our...er...my posts will be more, uh...profanity-laden... (K: meaning...? M: cursing...-.- K: I see!) ANYWAYS

M: We'll try to be professional most of the time, aside from Rant Mondays!...Which will be Kitty's job. Because who doesn't need a little rant on a Monday?

K: Just pleased be warned that my ranting will contain much cursing and insults...so please dont be offended by anything! =)

M: We'll also be doing some interviews of people related to the various topics on this blog, so stay tuned!

K: Until next Time! This is Kitty, signing off! *Feels like a news reporter*

M: We aren't news reporters -.-! Bye for now!