Faith Community – Column by Bob Shillingstad
The library board is not on the ballot this November, but for the past few years we have been reading that the citizens of North Idaho are backward. By golly, they should go back to their caves and pound sand. They hardly know how to read and certainly can’t think for themselves. Look at the test scores at the “public schools” that want another $25 million for the Coeur d’Alene school district to try to bring up the scores. Don’t interfere, let the officials who are losing enrollment and the administrators at the library buy the books. Be quiet!
A local newspaper and the “sex for everyone no matter what the age” crowd has been lamenting that censorship is on the rise. Before you know it, drag queens (aka mentally ill men dressed up as women in suggestive clothing) will have to find other venues to perform besides libraries, school class rooms, or family events in the park. Parents that object to deranged men promoting a weird sexual lifestyle or oppose books in the public and school libraries that give advice on masturbation, anal pleasure, homosexual attraction, and transgender transition for elementary students are just bigots. Of course, giving these books to kids is not as bad as censorship. Everything in writing is allowed, no matter the age of the reader. Why don’t libraries subscribe to Playboy or Penthouse? Why doesn’t the local paper actually print the table of contents to these books, or portions of the book, and let the public decide? Are they the purveyors of censorship by not publishing?
This is all part of the ongoing attack on the family and faith. It’s all an effort to make sex a recreational activity. No fault divorce. The murdering of children in the womb (up to one million per year) while calling it “women’s healthcare.” Half the children in this area do not live with their biological father. Sexually transmitted diseases are out of control; they are at record highs with over 2.5 million per year. Efforts are being made to make pedophilia normal and drop the age of sexual consent to a very young age. If you are opposed to any of these measures you are a homophobic, right wing, Christian nationalist and should shut up!
Let’s face it, normal people want to raise their children in a Christian home and not have their tax dollars funding libraries and “education” that is not effective or family affirming. If you visit the American Library Association website and click on its “Banned Books” tab, you will see its Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2023. Here they are:
- Gender Queer
- All Boys Aren’t Blue
- This Book is Gay
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
- Flamer
- The Bluest Eye
- Me and Earl
- Tricks
- Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex
- Sold
Of course, these explicit books are available at Amazon and most bookstores. They are available to parents and not banned in America. Why should there be an expectation that public money should be used to purchase these books? Voters are going to make a choice coming up and we need to take a stand: sex is reserved for marriage between a husband and wife. We need to reject the “hook-up” generation and proclaim civility and goodness in the land.
Ask the critics and the newspaper to print portions of the books so everyone can make up their own minds. Ask the critics to talk about policy and issues instead of name calling. We have had enough of the accusations without merit against the conservatives on the North Idaho College Board of Trustees and the conservatives on the board of the Community Library Network. Let us lay all of the issues on the table so we discuss them rationally.
