Children’s picture book flagged at Alabama library because author’s last name is ‘Gay’

And the Bible. Let's not forget that.

Mein Kampf has very interesting parts about reproductivity of animals. Statements such as

"the stork goes to the female stork, field mouse to field mouse, house mouse to house mouse, wolf to wolf, etc..."

are truly remarkable in his incomprehensibly big brain revelations about biology. Then he moves on to explain how the same would apply to humans, completely brushing over the fact that storks and mouse are different kinds and he is too stupid to differentiate between race and kind.

The people.complaining put quotes from it in their newsletters

Fyi since I'm assuming you didn't read the article, the book was just moved out of the Children's section. Obviously a mistake in instance, but it's not being banned. Mein Kampf is not in the children's section. I think it's fine for sexually explicit books (i.e. the book "Gender queer") to be moved out of the children's section

I knew a kid from Alabama back in high school.

He was exactly how you'd expect.

As a homosexual, I'm very interested in reading their Gay Agenda.

Reminds me of the good old days when AOL was king of the dial-up “internet”. They unilaterally rolled out a filter that suddenly completely broke a forum devoted to survivors of breast cancer. Only after a ton of backlash and negative press about “survivors of hooter cancer” did they relent…

This is the guy the feed was talking about. A good athlete who probably got a lot of shit in school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyson_Gay

Turned you into a furry, you prove their point

No, their name is litterally Gay; Marie Louise Gay.

I grew up on a road called Gay. I think my whole childhood would be cancelled.

Blame the borderline pornographic books that activists have been pushing on children for this response.

I know, right? When will those activists finally stop pushing the bible on kids??

Lmao, have you read Gender Queer? The protagonist comes out as asexual and mainly describes sexual topics either in the context of being uncomfortable with them or in the context of body issues. Nudity isn't automatically sexual. If I were a teen and was told this book was being removed for being pornographic, I'd feel pretty ripped off!

Yeah, Gender Queer is definitely a little more graphic than I think the average kid below 12-13 or so really shouldn't be seeing. The illustrations on oral sex are definitely a little more than I'm comfortable with for readers who aren't knowing what they're opening up, mostly because if i had pulled this bad boy out to read on the bus going home, I'd definitely have been bullied, hard.

I think that book is important for publication, definitely place it in an area designed for teens and those very close to it. But I wouldn't call it borderline pornographic any more than I would have called Catcher in the Rye borderline racist. If I had read this growing up, it might have helped me make sense of things, but I can see why it's such a hot button topic for some and an easy target for others.

Gender Queer was never intended for children. It is aimed at adults and young adults.

The NEA recommended it on a list of books for educators and some people misinterpreted this (perhaps purposely, since it acts as really nice fuel for the fear fire) as being recommended for children.

It is not, nor was it ever, a children's book.

Classic moral panic. Find a few volumes to scream about loudly enough and use that as justification for removing any book that doesn't square with your bigotry.

There hasn't been a rise in sexually explicit books being marketed to children. There's been a rise in claims that anything that even touches upon LGBTQ is sexually explicit.

There's a book about two male penguins that raise an egg/chick. It's based on a true story. But since it's two MALE penguins, it's deemed "not appropriate for children" and is moved out of the children's section. Nevermind that the book is designed for kids or that there's no "penguin sex" in the book. The mere fact that two males are sharing a parental role is enough to label it "sexually explicit" because the people who oppose this book imagine that the two male penguins might have sex at some point. Meanwhile, if the exact same book were published but with a male and female penguin, it would be okay. Even if you could imagine the male and female penguin having sex. (And, again, there's no actual sex or even the implication of sex. This is totally in the imaginations of the adults trying to ban the book.)