Book Bans and Freedom of Speech

By Ben Bisbach

Monday, June 10 was a beautiful sunny day.  I was looking forward to working in the garden that evening after I got done with work.  However when I checked my email that morning, I realized I would need to spend my evening doing something else. 

Apparently, a few residents over in Harmony have taken deep offense to the fact that there are books about gay people in the Harmony Public Library.  Not only that, but these books are accessible to children. The Harmony Library does not ban or remove books, and it is backed up in that stance by basic American values including freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the marketplace of ideas, as well as a recently passed Minnesota state law which prohibits the censorship of material in public and school libraries. 

That has not deterred these citizens from expressing their displeasure.  So instead of a nice evening in the yard, I went to join them at the Harmony Library Board meeting.

Laws which ban or remove books from libraries and schools have become extremely fashionable on the political right in the last few years.  Led by Republican politicians, a great many conservative states have jumped on the bandwagon, censoring books with ideas that offend them.  Most often, it is books about racism or books with gay or transgender characters that are targeted.  The politicians pushing this stuff know exactly what they are doing – they are sowing division and weaponizing prejudice as a political tool, to mask the fact that they have little else to offer.  The great irony of all this is that these are the same people howling that “cancel culture has run amok, everyone is too sensitive, everyone is too easily offended.”  They go around calling others “snowflakes,” but when confronted with ideas they themselves disagree with, they melt and demand the government protect them from any discomfort or offense.

As the book opponents spoke, the specific reason for their opposition became clear.  To them, any mention of queer people at all is automatically obscene.  In their worldview, a children’s book about a kid who has two moms or two dads is inherently sexual.  A book about a teenager coming out as gay is X-rated, adults only content.  Any book that has any queer characters whatsoever is inappropriate for children, or inappropriate to be in a library at all.  This is old-school, 20th century homophobia – this idea that the mere existence of gay people is an X-rated concept that only a mature adult can grapple with. 

But why does it matter?  In the age of the internet, only the most naive adult would imagine the library is a kid’s only source of information.  It matters because the 11 or 12 year old who is starting to realize he may be gay, or the 16 or 17 year old who knows he is, is seeing his community debate whether people like him are “inappropriate.”  He is listening as his neighbors express their horror that their kids might learn people like him exist.  He is watching as entire states ban books about people like him so his peers won’t be exposed to… people like him.  What is that teaching that kid about himself? 

And that in fact is what these book wars are really about.  Its not just about literal access to a book.  It’s an attempt to reinforce the stigma against being queer, free speech and the 1st Amendment be damned.  The book opponents see a society today in which gay and trans people are more visible, integrated, and accepted than ever before.  They want to put the genie of tolerance and love and basic human decency back into the bottle.  They want to turn back the clock to an imaginary past where we didn’t exist.

They will fail.  In Harmony Minn., as rural as anywhere, the book opponents were outnumbered by book supporters by about 3 to 1.  But in this period of backlash it will take all of us who value tolerance, kindness, openness, freedom of expression, and just plain old freedom, to speak up as loudly as those who feel entitled to impose their prejudice on everyone.