10/22/2024
The Washington Post
By Ron Charles
A Little Free Library in Washington Terrace, Utah. (Photo courtesy of Little Free Library; photo illustration by Ron Charles/The Washington Post)
A Little Free Library in Washington Terrace, Utah. (Photo courtesy of Little Free Library; photo illustration by Ron Charles/The Washington Post)
Some weeks, the shelf of literary inanities is packed so tightly that I don’t know what to check out first.
Consider Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma schools superintendent who always sounds like he’s auditioning to play the mayor’s priggish wife in a high school production of “The Music Man.” Walters wants taxpayers to buy 55,000 Bibles. And — behold! — the edition that just so happens to meet his highly idiosyncratic criteria is the “God Bless the USA Bible” being hawked for $60 a piece by the renown religious scholar Donald Trump (story).
There are so many Constitutional problems here that, in the words of St. John, “If they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”
Meanwhile, in Utah, which has already passed a book banning law that enthrones the state’s dimmest bulbs, censors are expanding their campaign of cultural decimation beyond schools and libraries.
Brooke Stephens, of Utah Parents United, maintains a page called “LaVerna in the Library,” which encourages eagle-eyed Comstockians to send in a photo of “a naughty children’s book including a photo of at least one harmful passage!”
The latest nook of literary liberty to spark Stephens’s ire is a Little Free Library — one of those give-away boxes that tens of thousands of bookish folks maintain around the country.
Last month, the LFL organization encouraged people to “share banned or challenged books … to broaden access to a variety of diverse voices.” Utah State Rep. Sahara Hayes took up that cause and announced she was putting banned books in LFLs around her district.
Not so fast, you naive Americans! On Facebook, Stephens warns that Hayes — and, by implication, other depraved stewards of Little Free Libraries — could be arrested for distributing p**n.
“The police don’t even need to find those books in there with her fingerprints on them,” Stephens claims. “She already declared her intent to distribute to minors. That alone is against the law.”
Just when you think there are no more seats at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, these folks scooch over and make room. You may remember Alice’s host saying, “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.”
Fortunately, the United States is not there — yet. Books that some conservatives don’t like or don’t consider appropriate for their children are not ipso facto p**nographic. Nor does the appearance of “naughty” words or a “dirty” illustration make an entire novel obscene. The idea that these sanctimonious zealots would start publicly threatening citizens for giving away their own books on private property should strike every American ear like a 10-alarm fire in our national library. ❖
