The facts are these:
- the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library already keeps Playboy magazine in a manner that precludes access by children,
- citizens are requesting the library treat four books in the same fashion as it already treats Playboy,
- the books are far more explicit than Playboy,
- no one is trying to remove the books from the library,
- no one is trying to get the library to do anything different from what it is already doing, and
- other libraries are already keeping children from accessing the very same books.
Yet there's prominent media member Jim Ogle misleading the public with false claims of "censorship." Then he tells the public, "They're all going to laugh at you!" His goal is to get people to think as he wants them to think, and he's the general manager of a major media outfit! "Leave work early to speak out against an act that will paint Kansas at [sic] backward," he says. What a demagogue.
As Dan Gerstein once wrote, emphasis mine, "The ... elites have convinced themselves that they are taking a stand against cultural tyranny. .... [T]he reality is that it is those who cry "Censorship!" the loudest who are the ones trying to stifle speech and force their moral world-view on others." Source: "Why the Democrats Are Losing the Culture Wars," by Dan Gerstein, Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2005.
Think, Kansans. Don't be fooled by demagogues. Your library is already sequestering Playboy from children. The precedent is already set. Books vastly more explicit than Playboy may be similarly sequestered. If not, Playboy must be made available to children to avoid any double standard.
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