American Library Association's Social Activism Undermines Public Trust in a Community Institution

Read this report highly critical of the American Library Association's "social agenda":

• Agenda on the Shelves; The American Library Association's Social Activism Undermines Public Trust in a Community Institution, by Emily Whitten, WORLD Magazine, 6 July 2012:

  The ALA's increasingly vocal social agenda combined with policies that prevent local librarians from responding to their community's values are very real dangers.  And these policies may be undermining library relevance and public trust at a time when both are sorely needed.

Read this response by librarian David Lee King:

• "Bad Reporting and Weird Views about ALA," by David Lee King, David Lee King, 7 July 2012.

Now read my own comment:

The ALA's actions include not only those described above, but also intentionally false and misleading actions intended to mislead an entire nation.  For example, ALA publishes each year an annual list of the top 10 most challenged books.  This year’s list, for example, notes the "jump" of "The Hunger Games" from 5th position to 3rd position, likely as a means to ride the wave of the movie's popularity, and no actual proof of actual numbers is ever given despite request.

But in 2010, the ALA rode another wave.  It pushed 2 books on the list as being opposed for their LGBT content.  It said the top book was challenged dozens of times.  In reality it was challenged only 4 times all year across the entire nation.  It said another LGBT book was challenged for its LGBT content.  In reality the parents objected to the graphic of two Boy Scouts watching two people having anal sex, and, more significantly to the matter of the ALA's intentional deception, the author of the book admitted that ALA told her other books had been challenged more often that hers, but it pushed the book up the list due to its LGBT content and its successful removal from a single school.

And I have the tape recording of the author saying this in public at her speech at a New Jersey Library Association annual meeting.  See/listen for yourselves: http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2011/09/banned-books-week-is-gay-promotion.html

So the ALA essentially faked its 2010 annual list of top 10 challenged books to push the LGBT issue.

That said, I have no evidence that ALA was pushing the LGBT issue to promote it.  Rather I suspect it pushed the LGBT issue to cynically take advantage of the false controversy it was intentionally faking so the LGBT community would pick up the issue and carry the ALA's false censorship message further than the ALA could do alone.  I think the ALA was stepping on the LGBT community to use it to its own advantage.  Similarly in 2011, the ALA dropped all LGBT books from its annual list and is now riding The Hunger Games movie wave to push its false message.

Remember, the last book censored in the USA was "Fanny Hill" and that was about half a century ago.  So the ALA definitely needs help in spreading its false message that censorship is occurring everyday in nearly every community.  Desperately faking / manipulating lists to promote falsity is a sure sign the ALA knows people are not buying the bull.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Now, tell everyone what you think about the Emily Whitten report in the comments below.

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