RELIGIOUS OBJECTIONS TO INCLUSIVE BOOKS
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 Everything is permissible for me," but not everything is beneficial.
HISTORY OF BOOK BANNING IN AMERICA
When the 1776 Declaration of Independence was signed by the founding fathers, the declaration made claims that “all men are created equal.” Founding document declared that all people were “endowed by their Creator to have certain unalienable rights”.[2] This promise however did not extend to a fifth of the population of the early United States. This was an era in American history where slaves were not considered whole human beings.[3] Beyond this the early United States was also deeply entrenched in religious practices and was subsequently built on patriarchal assumptions. Most of the beginning colonies in the United States did not practice the concepts of separation of church and state. In fact churches and ministers salaries were subsidized by taxes and intertwined with the requirements for holding public office. Religion from the onset has been a baseline of moral governance in this nation. [10]
Book banning in America made its first appearance In the late 1800s. New York based Postmaster General Anthony Comstock led an effort to ban books with his Committee for the Suppression of Vice. Postmaster General Comstock labeled the publication as pornographic for its sexual depiction’s and advocating for birth control measures. This is one of the first official actions in the United States by a government official to censor published material. This action was taken in a changing cultural landscape in early America.[1] In 1890 public schools opened every day for the first time in the nation. This action was taken in an ever-changing cultural landscape. In 1890 schools opened every day for the first time in history [3]. This was the early onset of the 1916 ruling that made school attendance mandated with much objection from families. The expanding of school hours, and mandating of school attendance was viewed by many people as the government attempting to take custody of their children by force. [3]
At this point in the late 1800s, skepticism of the government and its school systems was already beginning to rise in this young nation. In 1899 the state of Tennessee passed a law establishing a commission to regulate textbooks. [3] This had been preceded by laws controlling which textbooks could be used in the state altogether. The American Book Company also known as “the book trust” was a conglomerate of many different book publishers in the United States. This proved to be one of the first laws passed to restrict textbook knowledge. The biology book later to be used by Scopes was approved at this time.
Tennessee's decisive decision was soon followed by a 1901 Indiana Supreme Court ruling. This ruling established the concept of parents rights to custody of children from the schools. The Indiana Supreme Court issued an opinion that said; “Natural rights of the parent to the custody and control of his infant child are subordinate to the state”. This new law was passed in reaction to the 1899 law passed in Tennessee which created immense suspicion about the government school systems. [3]
In 1918 there was an ongoing influenza pandemic happening around the world. Schools began requiring vaccinations of all students in order for them to be able to attend school. This infuriated parents who were already on edge about school systems controlling their children. This was viewed by many as another attempt by schools to impose the government's will on them. Many parents attempted to protest these measures with little to no success. [3]
In 1921 there was a shift in attention on the schools of minors when controversy hit the University of Kentucky in 1921.[3] Professor Arthur (Monkey) Miller stirred the emotions of those in his state when he began teaching a course on the theory of evolution. Protests began to call for the state to defund the University because people in the state disagreed with the theory of evolution to be taught in contrast to biblical creationism. However, unsuccessful this campaign by the public was, it had a ripple effect in other areas of the nation. In 1925 the state of Tennessee passed a law banning the teaching of evolution. There was fierce debate about the University of Tennessee as it was seen as a center of the debate. However, the president of the university, in a response of fear, decided not to get the university involved in blocking the ban going through the state houses of government after a highschool coach and substitute teach John Scopes put the law to the test by teaching by veering from the state sponsored textbook “A Civic Biology”. [3]
1931 saw the debate of book banning returned to the public eye. A young readers version of Huckleberry Finn was published by Harper and Brothers. A kid version was released to be taught inside classrooms. However, many public libraries took deep offense to this book. It was labeled as “immoral and sacrilegious” by the Denver and Omaha public libraries. As well, the Brooklyn Library went as far to say that it gave a “bad example” for young kids. [4]
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, a supreme court ruling in 1943, brought even more attention to the public school system and further mistrust in schools altogether. This case ended the requirement for students to salute the American flag, or to say the pledge of allegiance as a requirement. Previously before this ruling, it was required of every student to recite the pledge of allegiance. This was one of the earliest onsets of the concept of indoctrination in schools. A portion of the argument against the pledge claimed that the government should not “choose white doctrine“ that students should be compelled to submit to. A ruling like this was viewed by some as unpatriotic, but two others was seen as taking back parental rights. [3]
The 1950s brought about some major shifts in censorship and book banning all together. in 1951 J.D. Salinger’s book The Catcher and the Rye was targeted for removal from library shelves. Sexuality and violence were the core reasons behind the effort to remove this book.[5] This was the beginning of continued efforts in the 1950s when South Carolina Governor, George Bell Timmerman signed a law in the state protecting parents' rights in the education system. This law marked a major shift in the idea that limiting liberal education could preserve conservative thought. The law was coined by some as the “Southern Manifesto ", the law argued that parents had rights to limit what content school systems were teaching to their children.[3] This South Carolina law established precedent for the New York City Board of Education who successfully removed the book Huckleberry Finn from all public schools. This South Carolina law became the precedent for many book Banning efforts to come. After the New York City ban, Illinois schools began to adopt these measures and book banning made its way into many local school districts. [4]
1964 marked a cataclysmic shift in the American political system. The emergence of Ronald Reagan as a political icon who was soon to rise to the presidency, gave a speech titled A Time for Choosing.[3] The significance of this speech was found in Ronald Reagan's status in the public as a democratic figure. However, when delivering this speech Reagan had recently changed parties to become a Republican. Ronald Reagan's politics have shaped much of conservative ideas today, and his speech in October of 1964 echoes sentiments into today's politics as well. Reagan fought against the idea that we “must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people”. He went on to say; “A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.” Reagan would later in his speech float the idea that had been plaguing school boards and state governments for the last few decades. Using the fear of taking a parent's rights away, Reagan said; “We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.” [11]
It was at this point that the modern American consciousness began to see a correlation between Conservative Christian values and the Republican party. Before this moment our nation's history of book banning had been a religious tactic that had slowly slid into a political realm. It was in the next few decades to materialize that these two worlds would collide and become the driving force of moral absolutism to reign over the American political system.
The 1970s brought a dim bright spot for literature and the preservation of history. In 1977 the library Congress was established. The idea of the Library of Congress was to create public interest in reading and in books and in literature throughout history. The goal of the Library of Congress is to preserve human thought.[4] It is in this library that books can be submitted and can never be omitted or banned from its existence in humanity. No one could have predicted what would happen in the next two decades and how the resurgence of book banning has created a greater need for such a library to exist.
The establishment of the Library of Congress in the 1970s was a timely need in American culture because around the corner in the 1980s was the “Boogeyman”. In the 1980s H.I.V and drug abuse become promenent culturl issues at this time Those who saw it as a stain on American culture. Further in Evangelical Christian ideals, claim that anything that is not “Godly” or “pure” is identified as something done by the work of Satan. These theological and ideological frameworks paved the path for an assault on coming LGBTQ+ literature. [6]
In 1982 a Supreme Court case titled; Island Trees School District V. Pico, Made a surprise move in limiting States authority to ban books just because they simply don't like them. This however paved the path for book Banning efforts to look for more explicit content and search for content with more detailed sexual description as found in LGBTQ+ literature. Heteronormative culture in which America was, and continues to be ignorant of homosexual activity. Theorizing why books use more description in queer literature could say that it is an attempt to normalize and inform the understanding around LGBTQ+ people and their lives. However these books were written, they became the target point for conservative book banning efforts.[7] In 1985 the Concord Library utilized these tactics in the banning of the book Huckleberry Finn from its public libraries. Utilizing the precedent of Island Trees School District V. Pico made it more difficult for Banning to happen; however there was a seismic shift in how literature would be written and in culture in general in the 1990s and beyond. [4]
Since the rise of Reagan politics and the marriage of faith-based conservative politics, American evangelicals led the movement of homeschooling legalization in all 50 states in the United States of America. This was seen as a victory for conservative Christians who wanted to have the choice to remove their children from liberal public education, and to educate their children with their own conservative values. This gave rise to Christian bias in education and the glorification of the idea of choice according to the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The homeschooling movement continued to grow gradually through the turn of the century and into the beginning of the 2000s and the 2010s. Adam Shapiro's book; Trying Biology" in 2013 detailed the issues with anti-evolution stances, transphobic ideas. Shapiro’s book also discusses how the 1914 textbook “A Civic Biology” by George William Hunter claimed that people who struggle with addiction are like criminals and deserving of death and poverty. Trying Biology drew many correlations to how students learning from these texts are getting vastly different education than those in public schools and more mainstream educational references. These viewpoints when left unchecked and inside of homes with parents in authority who do not accept liberal ideas can lead to wide differences in cultural understanding. These dangers can manifest as indifference when it comes to tragedies in the public Square. Atrocities like the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016 and the murder of George Floyd can create opportunities for dehumanizing behavior and rationalization because of gaps in education. These ideologies have led to some of the rejection of the black liberation movements we are seeing today. [3]
Covid-19 was a major flashpoint for ideology in America. Covid and Trump's loss in the 2020 election gave rise to Governor Ron DeSantis who in 2019 through an act of political posturing issued executive order 19-32 to ban books in Florida. This order required every book to go through a review process before being approved to be in public schools. This resulted in school libraries all over the state closing and removing every book creating a massive shortage of literature for young people. It was through Ron DeSantis that the rhetoric about indoctrination of children returned to the political mainstream. This type of terminology was already baked into the conservative ideal and was ripe for stirring up conservative anger which could produce votes for Republican candidates. [8]
In 2020 according to the American Library Association there were only 156 applications for books to be banned Nationwide. However, in reviving the conservative anger for political posturing, the year 2022 saw a record of 1,269 applications for book banning nationwide. With over an 800% increase in book banning efforts over a two year period, President Joe Biden weighed in on this political phenomenon. Joe Biden was quoted saying; “I’ve never met a parent who wants a politician dictating what their kid can learn and what they can think or who they can be”. [9]
Book Banning is nothing new to the United States of America. It has made and remade itself in approach and in volume for generations. Whether from its Catholic roots in the early colonies or to the twenty-four hour news cycle culture of today, it is hard to ignore how the rise of political power in America and the declining influence of religion in this nation has created the monster before us today. Religious conservatives are holding to power in the only ways available through the government. Imposing moral standards of one's faith on an entire nation through any means necessary. We live in a time that is one of the most liberal free thinking eras of our nation, however we see those losing power clinging to it loudly. Understanding where we have been can help us direct one another to a better and more free thinking society moving forward.
[1] Harvey J. Graff, Todays Campaigns and Lives of the Young: Book Bannings Past and Present, Against the Current, 2022. [2] Laura Meckler and Perry Stein, These are books school systems don’t want you to read, Unknown Publisher, 2022. [3] Lepore. J, (2022). The Parent Trap. The New Yorker. Kaplan, J., (1984). [4] Born to Trouble. Garamond/Pridemark Press. [5] Gammage, J, (2022). [6] McCormick, P. Diary of a Made-Up Kid. The New Yorker, (2023). [7] McCormick P, My Book is Horrifying.. New York Times (2023). [8] Goldstein, D, New Reading Curriculum is mired in debate over race and Gender. The New York Times.(2022). [9] Fleishman, J, (2023). The Fla. moms battling the book-ban brigade. Philadelphia Inquirer. [10] E. Froner (2017), Give Me Liberty. PG95, W.W.Norton and Company. [11] R. Regan (1964) A Time for Choosing Speech, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
RELIGION AND BOOKS IN A POST Y2K AMERICA
The turn of the century brought one of the world's most devastating disasters in modern history. On September 11th, 2001, four American Airlines planes were hijacked by terrorists bringing death and destruction to not only the people of New York City, Washington D.C, and Pennsylvania, but also to the heart of the United States as a whole.[1] Anyone who experienced that day can look back and likely recall where they were in the moments the news was delivered about this fateful day. However, not everyone's view of September 11th is exactly the same. In the moments and days after the disaster our country seemed unified for a short moment. However, since that truly terrible time in history, the United States has returned to its ways of misunderstanding and “othering” those we do not understand.
On the day of the September 11th attacks it seemed clear where evil was located in our world. In the days following this disaster there was a revival in the Evangelical Christian hermeneutic of evil. This hermeneutic states that anything outside of Jesus and anything not glorifying God is evil. This theological thought process flows from the idea of original sin. An original sin theological framework states that people are born depraved and sinful, thus needing Jesus to fix this broken world.[2] However, this theological viewpoint informs many people’s worldview and can limit one's ability for understanding nuance in society. This mindset has a hand in the lack of understanding that has led to the evangelical push for book banning in America today. Librarians and school administrators have been harassed across the United States by unruly parents attempting to get rid of the “evil and pornographic books'' in schools today.[3] The louder parents scream in boardrooms, the resurgence in political activism on the topic of book banning heats up nationally. Why have conservative religious groups reignited the public debate on book banning? What indicators and key moments in recent history have led to such polarization in today's American culture?
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in 2021 released a report called the American Religious Landscape Survey. In this survey it was reported since the year 2006 that white evangelical protestants have seen the largest drop in church attendance and membership of all surveyed religious groups. The PRRI report claims that in the year 2006, 23% of Americans identified as being evangelical christians as compared to the same data collected in 2020 which only reported 14% of Americans identifying as evangelical. [4] Understanding that the decline in church attendance and the rise of political extremism and engagement by the evangelical church in culture politics is key in our knowledge of why the culture wars have become so loud as street preachers and protesters who will be donning their t-shirts reading; “ask me about Jesus”, while emotionally intense public conversation is happening inside the school board meeting. Students have to walk through hoards of protesting christians on their way to advocate for their rights to learn and exist [3]
By 1993, all 50 states in the U.S. made it legal for parents to homeschool their children. This was a revolution brought on through the Reagan era and continued to gain steam to the Clinton administration. Homeschooling in this time was viewed by evangelicals christians as a way to teach their children in accordance with their faith and beliefs.[5] Looking at the statistics of the decline in American evangelical identification, it is clear that there is an ongoing decline if evangelical identification which creates frustration for those who were educated in such environments.
Lindsey Durtschi, a member of the Escambia County Florida PTA, was quoted by the New York Times as being livid over her children learning how to “tie a tourniquet in case of an active shooter, but they can't know that men and women may not be the only option for a marriage license?” Durtschi was a student of a Christian college who grew up in an evangelical household. She claimed that she does not want to devalue how people feel and how they see the world, however she gave a nod to the fact that her evangelical friends and family were ignoring the real problems in society.[6]
Isolationism has been a theme throughout Christianity for the last few decades as I personally encountered families justify pulling kids out of schools. An increased mistrust of the world in which people exist created alternative teachings as explored in Adam Shapiro’s 2013 book titled Trying Biology. His book explored the divide between Christianity and science. In his writings he discusses the 1914 textbook written by George William Hunter titled “A Civic Biology”. The influence of these texts are seen clearly in the culture wars today. These books affirm a denial of evolution in favor of teaching biblical creationism all the way to eugenics of those who do not adhere to social norms. Hunter wrote in his 1914 book speaking about alcoholics; “if such people were lower animals we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading.”[5] The resurrection of these teachings nearly one-hundred years later has become apparent in today's society. Isolation of education and limiting literature can create avenues for participation in groups like Moms for Liberty who utilize conservative anger to fuel their causes.[3]
In 2016 I was a pastor in a large Church when news came about the gunman who killed forty-nine people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida came through.[3] In the days following the shooting I began to hear people that I worked with say things that were bigoted towards the LGBTQ+ community. These comments were distressing to me as a closeted transgender person. The belief that denying queer people rights, and advocating for losing their lives was heartbreaking. This rhetoric continued to get louder as I watched those I worked with closely continue to spread hate towards the gay community.
The rise of politicians like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have led to pressure on school boards, and convincing their millions of followers to advocate for the removal of books from public libraries and school libraries.[7] Books on gender identity, race and sex education including LGBTQ understanding and literature have paved the ground and led to loud politicians giving permission for many of their followers to reverberate this misunderstanding and at times devolving into hate. The removal of any literature in our school systems could rob generations of young people from growing up with a frame of reference and understanding of other people. At times it appears we have reverted back to ideology from the 1900s and have set back intellectual progress decades if not centuries.
The Trump presidency in 2016 turned up the rhetoric in our country about culture and its apparent departure from Christian conservative values. The Trump and Clinton presidential campaign season was a fierce cultural dividing line in the United States. Within the Evangelical world, in which I existed at that time, I was a pastor when the Bible was brought into the political fight louder than I could ever remember. The June 1st 2020 photo with President Trump and a Bible in front of a church was viewed by many Evangelical conservatives as a beacon of hope. The pictures of people being cleared in the streets so the president could take a photo with the Bible was a picture of an ideal of fighting for truth many christians aspired to.[8] Fighting though a world opposed to biblical truth, and to stand for the word of God was idealized in the evangelical movement. Standing for truth in a violently liberal world was a dream for many white christians, and continues to be today. Later the Trump appointed Federal Department of Justice would claim that this photo was not the reason for the police violence in the streets.[9] However, the optics of this situation were fuel for the fire on both sides of the culture war which put the Bible right in the middle of it all once again.
For generations the Bible has been at the center of public debate. This debate which argues whether scripture should be the standard of cultural rules or should be viewed as something personal by an individual is heating up again. Because of this push, The Bible found itself in the middle of a book banning debate in a Utah District in 2023. A state law had been passed in Utah which allows schools to remove “pornographic and indecent” books from their libraries. The Davis School District formally made a complaint about the King James Bible arguing that it met the definitions of pornographic. After much debate the committee of the district decided that the Bible was not age appropriate for elementary and middle school readers. The banning of the Bible in this Utah School District was a creative way to show opposition to book banning. However there has been a double standard in this debate. Even though the Bible met the state law definition of pornographic, many in these School districts claimed that it was objectionable to remove the Bible because it was more important to have it in the school libraries than to remove it all together.[10] This further exemplifies the idea that Christianity is viewed by many as a superior framework and should be forced on others. This gets back to some of the colonial roots in America where parts of the nation were forced into conformity with Christianity as a requirement for many to assimilate into culture, or to simply have food.
In March of 2020 Johnny Teague and Evangelical pastor and author, wrote a book called “The Lost Diary of Anne Frank”. Teague wrote a fictional story about how Ann Frank converted to Christianity in her final days in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In this book, Teague tells a story of Anne Frank embracing Christianity before she is murdered by the Nazis. This book was viewed as anti-semitic by many. [11] However, it is common in the Christian narrative to believe that Christian doctrine is superior to every other belief system.
The belief that America was founded as a Christian nation comes from alternative history and is not rooted in fact. The narratives of Christian superiority echo louder as we get closer to elections and move forward as a nation. The banning of books in The United States has done harm to our forward progress. Our recent history as a nation has been showing a further divide in ideological middle ground. Book banning in the last 20 years has only made these differences all the more fierce. To find a way forward we must explore ways to hear one another.
REFERENCES:
[1] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (2004), The 9/11 Commission Report, The United States of America. [2] Romans 3:23-24, The Holy Bible KJV, Nelson Publishing [3] Fleishman, J, (2023). The Fla. moms battling the book-ban brigade. [4] D. Bass, (2021) America is no longer as evangƒelical as it was – and here’s why, CNN. [5] Lepore. J, (2022). The Parent Trap. The New Yorker. [6] M. Goldberg (2023) If You Care About Book Bans, You Should Be Following This Lawsuit. The New York Times. [7] M. Kincaid (2022) Why Florida’s Ban On Textbooks Is Just Another Scare Tactic, Minn Post. [8] T. Gjelten (2020), Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op, NPR. [9] D. Mangan (2021), Trump Bible photo op not reason cops violently cleared George Floyd protest outside White House, feds claim, CNBC. [10] J. Mcdaniel, (2023). Book Ban critic gets scripture sidelined. Washington Post [11] Lapin, A, (2022). An evangelical GOP house candidate in Texas wrote a novel about Ann Frank finding Jesus. Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
