The use of "Brokeback Mountain," a tale of homosexual lovers in Wyoming, as an optional reading selection for a senior English class at St. Andrew's Episcopal School has the school's community in an uproar.
Cary and Kate McNair, who had pledged $3 million to the school, were formally released from their donor agreement after finding a teacher's refusal to remove the book from the non-mandatory list objectionable.
Cary McNair, who could not be reached for comment, was quoted in the Austin American-Statesman from an Aug. 17 letter that said "an apparent agenda at the Upper School is developing that is detrimental to [St. Andrew's School's] future."
Detrimental to the future of an educational institution?
Perhaps it's just the changing times, but it seems that attempting to understand or at least familiarize oneself with other lifestyles and cultures is one of the best means of developing a society.
Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson seemed to think so.
"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance," he once said.
Unfortunately, this idea seems to lack prevalence in America's relationship with 'deviant' ideas - and by deviant, we mean anything straying a hair from the Christian right 'norm.'
Teenagers are free to watch educationally-valueless MTV videos with nearly naked actors all but having sex on the screen - but give them access to a Pulitzer Prize-winning author's emotional short story on gay love, and all of a sudden it's "pornographic" and morally-corrupting.
Some of the most influential and celebrated books in history have come under fire over similar issues. The banned book debate is hardly a new development. Works by Voltaire, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Paine, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger and Maya Angelou have all been brought under harsh fire, just to name a few.
Since 1982, the American Library Association has held a Banned Books Week, as a reminder to Americans not to take the democratic freedom to read for granted.
"Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: First, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information," reads a statement on the ALA Web site. "Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled."
This year's Banned Books Week lasts from Sept. 24 to Oct. 1.
In 2004, childhood reads such as "The Giver," "Lord of the Flies," "Flowers for Algernon" and "The Face on the Milk Carton" all made the Top 100 Most Challenged Books list.
Of course, it's publications such as these that are eroding the morals of today's youth with their perspectives on the dangers of conformity and anarchy and the difficulties of mental retardation and adoption.
The "Brokeback Mountain" battle shouldn't even be an issue. Students are not required to read the text, and once the motion picture premieres this winter, it won't even be on the list at all. Of course, it's always better to start a witch hunt before the problem gets out of hand.
At least the parents of St. Andrew's haven't yet started burning the offensive material in bonfires.
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