Alabama is at it again. Not content with their continued assaults against teaching science instead of religion, they're now attacking the teaching of literature — if the author or any of the characters is gay.
A bill proposed by Republican Representative Gerard Allen would ban any such book from public school libraries. Originally, this went so far as to cover Shakespeare, though he eventually added in an exception for "classics", a term that he never defined (I suppose a library could get around it by calling any work older than 20 years a "classic"). Amazingly, he even seems to be disputing that such an act is censorship:
"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."
... because of course children will grow up to be that much more capable of dealing with the world if you incompetently try to hide the fact that some people actually are gay.
I find myself vaguely wishing them to have complete success in all of these motions, so the rest of the nation can finally just give up on them, revoke the accreditation on their educational institutions, and simply wall in the entire state to make a nice asylum for all the uneducated religious loonies to hide in. Of course, then you have the problem of how to help all of the people who don't deserve to be trapped there escape.
But that's really the crux of the problem: as a nation we have a responsibility to make sure that education remains available to our children, who have done nothing to deserve having it taken away, and it's obviously impossible for them to just pack up and change states. It's also important that their education remains based on observation and reason rather than faith, partly because there is no stable baseline for what "faith" will teach, and partly because while faith may help you be a better person, it generally won't help you survive. It neither brings home food, nor fixes the car, nor calculates the mortgage. Nor, to bring up examples more likely to be sudden casualties in a theocracy, does it provide the foundations for discovering medicines, learning more about physiology, or preventing the destruction of the environment.
Fortunately, there is a shield in place; our Bill of Rights, the foundation stone of our protections against tyranny, start with and are highlighted by two principles: that the only safe counter to "bad speech" is more speech, not enforced silencings, and that religion must be a matter for individuals, and left out of the workings of the government. As I've commented on before, however, a growing number of people aren't learning how important the First Amendment is. I expect that this batch of silly bills will be soundly defeated, just like all of the similar ones before them, but it is important not to let the people around us forget the foundation stone, the reason for those defeats.
I suspect that once that happens, even the majority of Christians won't like the results.
Such an optimist
Quoting Zed: "I expect that this batch of silly bills will be soundly defeated, just like all of the similar ones before them, but it is important not to let the people around us forget the foundation stone, the reason for those defeats."
I hope very much that you are right. However, I think it is only a matter of time before such bills are passed. Why? Because they are constantly brought up. The sponsors never learn from their defeats -- they only take an even harder line and resolve to introduce the bills again. They are allowed to do this by their constituencies because the vast majority of people don't pay attention to what goes on in their state legislatures, so incumbants (who always have an advantage anyway) aren't usually voted out. Some may even think that this voter apathy amounts to approval. And, so long as these bills keep returning in these times when legislatures are full of right-wing fanatics, there is always the strong possibility of passage.
As for building a wall around Alabama... I am reminded of a discussion a while back about the Blue States leaving the Union. The Red States would learn very quickly just how dependent they are on money from those liberal, un-godly states when it comes to keeping their roads (and schools, and hospitals) in good condition. Sure, it wouldn't be fair to those people who didn't deserve to be in a Red State, and that is something that would have to be addressed. But it still might be worth it. How much are those states holding the Blue States back? What would life in California be like if they didn't have to send however many billions of dollars to the federal government each year?
Actually, why hasn't California (or New York for that matter) left? The last I heard, California's economy was something like the fifth in the world, and the federal government wouldn't bomb them into submission.
Secession
Voters tend to be allergic to decisions that drastic unless there is extreme provocation, and to be honest, I'm not so sure that the feds wouldn't nuke California rather than see it secede. As soon as one splinters away, a lot of others would follow, and it would tear the country apart. It's not possible for states to win a civil war at this point unless they somehow gain control of a nuclear arsenal, so the best a state can hope for is to be a constant nuisance until they get their way, or follow Montana's example and openly declare that they won't cooperate with federal agents.
New York would be absolutely mortified to have something in common with Dixieland, anyway.