Wesley Scroggins #fundie

Wesley Scroggins #fundie joemygod.blogspot.com

A public school board in Missouri has banned Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel Slaughterhouse Five because it "teaches ideas that are contrary to the Bible." This action came after a protracted complaint campaign by local university "professor" Wesley Scroggins.

Shortly before 9 p.m. Monday, the school board voted 4-0 -- three members were absent -- to keep Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," an award-winning book about date rape, and remove Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" and Sarah Ockler's "Twenty Boy Summer." Wesley Scroggins, a Republic resident, challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible. "I congratulate them for doing what's right and removing the two books," said Scroggins, who didn't attend the board meeting. "It's unfortunate they chose to keep the other book."

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old comment by

From the Slaughterhouse-Five Wikipedia entry:

Censorship controversy

Slaughterhouse-Five has been the subject of many attempts at censorship, due to its irreverent tone and purportedly obscene content. In the novels, American soldiers use profanity; his language is irreverent; and the book depicts sex. It was one of the first literary acknowledgments that homosexual men, referred to in the novel as "fairies," were among the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

In the USA it is frequently banned from literature classes, removed from school libraries, and struck from literary curricula;[8] however, it is still taught in some schools. The U.S. Supreme Court considered the First Amendment implications of the removal of the book, among others, from public school libraries in the case of Island Trees School District v. Pico, [457 U.S. 853 (1982)], and concluded that "local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'" Slaughterhouse-Five is the sixty-seventh entry to the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-1999.

The Supreme Court already ruled that your move is fucking illegal, Scroggins!

(BTW, anyone else picturing Herr Scroggins as an Ebenezer Scrooge-like gnome/troll?)

old comment by Angua

@ His4Life:

Well, The Giver was written with a young adult audience in mind. I'm pretty sure that Slaugherhouse Five was written for an adult audience. I haven't read Slaugherhouse Five myself (although I probably ought to). The only Vonnegut novel I've read is {i]Cat's Cradle, which I didn't really like all that much, but I think I can see why others would. Given what I know about Vonnegut, I'm certain that Slaughterhouse Five is much darker than The Giver.

Actually, I'm rather surprised that anyone would object to The Giver. I know that it's kind of dark, but that's kind of a defining feature of most dystopian novels. I didn't know that novels were objectionable just because they were dark. And there are certainly much darker books out there. Compare it to something like 1984.

old comment by LDM

@ His4Life

You must be from Missouri, too. A group of parents tried to ban The Giver in Independence a few years ago. I can't remember if they won or not, but it made the book more popular than ever in our area.

Also, I believe in most school districts, parents who object to a child's reading assignment are permitted to request an alternate book to read. It doesn't even sound like Scroggins had a kid at that school, so that just puts him even more out of line.

And banning books from classrooms or school libraries does nothing to stop kids from reading it. They can still purchase the books, or check them out from public libraries. School boards and small town governments can wield their little power all they want, but once a kid steps outside their jurisdiction, all bets are off.

If anything, banning it will only fuel their interest. I know when I was in school, it worked every time for us. Even in the strictest fundie homes kids will find a way to satisfy their curiosity.

Finally, did anyone else get a Footloose flashback after reading this?

old comment by His4Life

I didn't say I was for banning the Vonnegut book. I just said I hadn't read it, so can't really comment on the content. I think we have a responsibility to be discerning in what we give our kids to read. Adults, on the other hand, should be free to explore whatever type of literature they deem appropriate. So, I am not in favor of "censorship" in the broad sense, but in a classroom setting, we as parents have a right to know what our kids are reading and what the subject matter is. I looked up Slaughterhouse Five (which hasn't been taught in any of my kids' classes) and it did not sound that bad, although it probably isn't something I'd let my younger kids read. The summary I read didn't comment on the homosexual aspect. I'll have to look into that.

old comment by M

@His4Life --

I'm seventeen, and I've been a voracious reader for as long as I could read. I'm not familiar with any Vonnegut, but I have read The Giver. Yes, it's dark.

But that's what made it good. That's what made it literature. It didn't flinch away from the dark side of what we can be. It's the story of a boy coming to terms with what he is as opposed to what society had groomed him to be, and every kid is going to face that, at least on a smaller scale. I read it when I was twelve, and honestly, I'm no worse for it. I don't think children -- especially not privileged American children like myself -- should be coddled about how cruel we can be. Besides, most of the really bad stuff about the dystopia in The Giver is implied; I didn't notice it at first.

But, in the end, I guess what I'm really trying to say is best expressed with a quote from the film version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, where Sam compares his and Frodo's situation to old, great stories:

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why."

Thank you for your time.

old comment by JeanP

You know, the Missouri school district who wanred to remove books from their libraries, among them one about rape:
these failures as human beings also don't believe, without bothering to even examine them or call the police, special ed rape victims apologize in person to their agressor before expulsing them, readmitting them without enhanced protection the following school year before being raped a second time by the same boy and, then, expulsing them a second time even when the boy actually pleaded guilty before arguing they "neglected to use reasonable means to protect [themselves]."(see here, here, here and the filing to a federal court here).

Scumbags.

Wesley Scroggins #fundie joemygod.blogspot.com

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