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Thursday, May 5, 2011

The C-Word

Pam at Bookalicio.us thinks authors should keep their political opinions to themselves.

Vinaya at The Book Lantern thinks that authors are entitled to expressing their opinions, just like anyone else.

I have made a conscious effort to keep my own political opinions off this blog. Why? Because I never wanted to alienate readers. And that's my choice. As a librarian, I have to put my own political and religious beliefs aside when I'm building our collection because it's my job to build a balanced collection, not a collection that centers around my personal beliefs.

I think it's Jackson Pearce's own business if she wants to get political on her blog. She is by no means the only author doing so.

And as for this (quoted from Pam's post, emphasis mine):

I want to be the one to teach my children my own morality code. YA authors are becoming more popular with teens. If Stephanie Meyer wrote a book that Satanism was the new black, we would have our own little cult of Satanists here in America. Teens are impressionable, I was at least when I was a teen. So what gives anyone the right to undermine at home teachings and spout their morality code publicly?

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights give anyone the right to spout their morality code publicly.

To say otherwise is to advocate censorship. And THAT'S one reason we need librarians: to stand up in the face of censorship and shout it down.

What do you think?
(And I promise not to censor YOU by closing comments.)