School Shenanigans in Maryland

Posted 11 October 2004 by Reed A. Cartwright

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School Board May Censor Books, Hand Out Bibles

Young supports a recent board recommendation that calls for “removing anything (from reading lists) that provides a neutral or positive view of immorality or foul language.”

But some in the southern Maryland county are upset, fearing that some board members are attempting to impose personal religious and moral beliefs on the public schools.

They point to the book list and a proposal that recommends distributing Bibles in schools, removing science books “biased towards evolution” and teaching sexual education classes focused exclusively on abstinence.

“They’re basically trying to skew the curriculum, to teach their own conservative Christian values,” said Meg MacDonald, a representative from the Charles County Education Association.

6 Comments

Steve · 11 October 2004

I think they should ban the dictionary until it stops being so morally neutral. Eventually, entries could read like:

con·dom (kndm) n. 1. A flexible sheath, usually made of thin rubber or latex, designed to cover the penis during sexual intercourse for unchristian contraceptive purposes or as a supposed means of preventing sexually transmitted diseases, thereby corrupting impressionable young people into a communistic, evolution-based rejection of God, resulting in eternal damnation. Despite liberal claims, Condoms fail 89% of the time, resulting in AIDS and pregnancy. (see also Onan, Stalin, Darwin)

steve · 11 October 2004

One proposal was to invite Gideons International to hand out Bibles to students. The document recommended being "very specific about where, when and how the Bibles are to be offered" but didn't provide any of those details.

And people wonder why I belong to the ACLU.

Joshua · 11 October 2004

Amazing. . . .such censorship would deplete most books in any given library, because most authors assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the reader will bring their own morals and values to the table when they read the book and do not have to explicitly pronounce that "this is bad" or "this is good".

Mrs Tilton · 12 October 2004

'Immorality or foul language', eh?

Then the bible will have to go, too, unless coprophagia and 'golden showers' are practices of the Elect.

steve · 12 October 2004

Maybe they should ban all photographs and photojournalism collections, considering that photos are morally neutral. For instance, If a book has a photo of Hitler, a librarian with a sharpie might write (Very bad man) in the margin, thereby morally correcting it. This would be cheaper than just throwing the book away.

A. Clausen · 12 October 2004

Oh, this is Maryland. I thought you wrote Iran.