Here is a twist in banning books, at least if you come (as I do) from a western perspective. The International Herald Tribune reported that in Hong Kong a Chinese student newspaper got labeled indecent, because it contained a sex survey that had questions about incest and bestiality. This label means that the paper needs to be sealed in a wrapper to be sold otherwise the publisher will be fined. The students say they did nothing wrong and protested. Part of the reaction was that an anonymous student created the truthbible.net site which lists the sex related details of the Bible, showing how much more offensive that is. The students claim that by the same token the Bible should be sold wrapped only.
The Authority, which in this case is called Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority is logging obscenity complaints both against the paper (184 at the writing of the article) and against the Bible (1766 so far.) The interesting thing for me is that both cases took a piece of content out of context and judged the whole work on that. This is exactly what librarians should fight against. In the first case I believe in the context of a survey it should have been acceptable. The paper was not advocating, showing or encouraging incest or bestiality in any form. They got labeled just by mentioning it. They (assuming that they are behind the website) fought back with the same method robbing the sexually explicit or morally questionable lines of the Bible out of context. I am wondering whether it is a wise move to use this kind of analogy. Yes, it shows the ridiculousness of the method. But at the same time they got engaged in a fight that they cannot win.
This entry is part of my Intellectual Freedom series.