News :: GLBT
Anti-Gay Challenge Issued to Kids’ Book About Marriage Equality in CO Libraryby Kilian MelloyWednesday Jul 16, 2008 The blog of a Colorado librarian documents the first challenge to a children’s book about a gay wedding, and predicts, "I suspect the book will get a lot of challenges in 2008-2009."
In anticipation of future attacks on the book, the librarian, Jamie S. LaRue, adds in the July 14 posting to his blog, called Myliblog, "So I offer my response, purging the patron’s name, for other librarians."
LaRue posted his long, thoughtful letter to the woman who wrote to challenge the inclusion of the book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen. The letter is consistently respectful in tone, but doesn’t back down from stating LaRue’s points: children’s books are meant to address all sorts of things, including adult issues, everything from terrifying or sad topics like alcoholic parents, divorce, and death, to happier (but controversial) topics like marriage between two devoted people of the same gender.
A "challenge" to a book included in a library’s collection is a formal, written expression of concern that the book in question may not be appropriate and constitutes a request for the library to consider removing (or reclassifying) the book. In the case of the challenge against Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, the patron suggested removing the book to a special area where "parental guidance" could ensure that small children would not find the book on their own, contrary to what their parents might wish.
LaRue writes to the patron who challenged the book, "Here’s what I understand to be your concern, based on your writings. First, you believe that ’the book is specifically designed to normalize gay marriage and is targeted toward the 2-7 year old age group.’"
Contines LaRue’s letter, "Your second key concern is that you ’find it inappropriate that this type of literature is available to this age group.’ You cite your discussion with your daughter, and commented, ’This was not the type of conversation I thought I would be having with my seven year old in the nightly bedtime routine.’"
Adds LaRue’s letter, "Finally, you state your strong belief, first, ’in America and the beliefs of our founding fathers,’ and second, that ’marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman as stated in the Webster’s dictionary and also in the Bible.’"
Having clearly set out the patron’s concerns as he has discerned them, LaRue methodically addresses each point in turn, agreeing that the book portrays a same-sex union as "no big thing," and identifying the story’s emotional core as main character "Chloe’s fear that she’s losing a favorite uncle to another relationship."
Adds LaRue, "That fear, I think, is real enough to be an issue for a lot of young children."
LaRue continues, "But yes, Sarah Brannen clearly was trying to portray gay marriage as normal, as not nearly so important as the changing relationship between a young person and her favorite uncle."
LaRue then gets right to the heart of the issue, writing, "You say that the book is inappropriate, and I infer that your reason is the topic itself: gay marriage."
To help the recipient of the letter understand the point he wishes to make regarding her concern, LaRue cites another book. "There’s a fascinating book about this... called ’The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales,’ by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim," LaRue informs the library patron.
"His thesis is that both the purpose and power of children’s literature is to help young people begin to make sense of the world. There is a lot out there that is confusing, or faintly threatening, and even dangerous in the world. Stories help children name their fears, understand them, work out strategies for dealing with life."
Continues LaRue, "In Hansel and Gretel, children learn that cleverness and mutual support might help you to escape bad situations. In Little Red Riding Hood, they learn not to talk to big bad strangers."
Adds LaRue, "So what defines a children’s book is the treatment, not the topic."
LaRue points out the characteristics of the book in question: its brevity, its style, its illustrations, and other aspects that place the book into the arena of children’s literature. The treatment of the topic, in other words, is appropriate for children: the young girl from whose perspective the story is told, plus her uncle and her uncle’s new husband, are all guinea pigs, the anthropomorphizing of cute, furry animals being another factor common to many children’s books.
The question, LaRue reasons, now becomes whether the book, plainly a children’s book and clearly, like many children’s books, intended to allow kid and their parents to have constructive discussions about concepts and issues that small children may not immediately understand, ought to be segregated into some sort of "parental guidance" area.
LaRue comes out against this idea, writing, "First, we tried the ’parenting collection’ approach a couple of times in my history here. And here’s what we found: nobody uses them. They constitute a barrier to discovery and use. The books there--and some very fine ones--just got lost."
Continues the librarian, "In the second case, I believe that every book in the children’s area, particularly in the area where usually the parent is reading the book aloud, involves parental guidance."
Adds LaRue, "The labeling issue is tricky, too: is the [potentially unsuitable] topic just homosexuality? Where babies come from? Authority figures that can’t be trusted? Stepmothers who abandon their children to die?"
LaRue went on to address the complainant’s other points.
"You feel that a book about gay marriage is inappropriate for young children. But another book in our collection, ’Daddy’s Roommate,’ was requested by a mother whose husband left her, and their young son, for another man. She was looking for a way to begin talking about this with son," LaRue wrote.
"Another book, ’Alfie’s Home,’ was purchased at the request of another mother looking for a way to talk about the suspected homosexuality of her young son from a Christian perspective."
The librarian informed the patron who had issued the challenge, "There are gay parents in Douglas County, right now, who also pay taxes, and also look for materials to support their views. We don’t have very many books on this topic, but we do have a handful."
Continued LaRue, "In short, most of the books we have are designed not to interfere with parents’ notions of how to raise their children, but to support them. But not every parent is looking for the same thing."
Having raised the point that not every person or every family has the same set of values and the same set of defining ideas that go with their values, LaRue cites his authorship of a book " about the founders’ vision of America," and suggests to the patron that, "our whole system of government was based on the idea that the purpose of the state was to preserve individual liberties, not to dictate them."
Adds LaRue in his letter, "The founders uniformly despised many practices in England that compromised matters of individual conscience by restricting freedom of speech," and points out that that freedom is explicitly guaranteed in the first amendment.
Writes LaRue, "Freedom of speech--the right to talk, write, publish, discuss--was so important to the founders that... without it, the Constitution never would have been ratified."
After offering several other definitions of the word "marriage" from Webster’s Dictionary that do not restrict its meaning to mixed-gender couples, LaRue summarizes, "Finally, then, I conclude that ’Uncle Bobby’s Wedding’ is a children’s book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children’s picture book area."
LaRue respectfully adds, "I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won’t agree with; there are certainly many that I object to."
However, notes LaRue, "Library collections don’t imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life."
The story was picked up in a July 15 posting at writer Dana Rudolph’s blog for lesbian mothers, Mombian.com where the story of the book’s being challenged was recounted along with the notation, "Author Sarah Brannen alerted me to this via e-mail, saying, ’This is the first concrete evidence I have of the book being challenged.’"
As LaRue had also predicted, Rudolph also foresees that, "This is likely the first of many challenges to the book," noting that, "The ultra-right already had its eye on it, as evidenced by Brent Bozell III’s shameless plagiarism of my review of the work."
Adds Rudolph, "At least other librarians will have LaRue’s letter as a starting point. Might be a good idea for all of us to print it out and keep ready to bring over to our local libraries, should the need arise."
Rudolph’s review of Uncle bobby’s Wedding appeared in the New England GLBT newspaper Bay Windows last March 18.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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