Book-banning has endured since Gutenberg’s invention of movable type in 1450 enabled mass production of printed material.
Multiple European monarchs banned printing presses soon after Gutenberg’s creation because an ignorant populace served their interests.
The first known book ban in America occurred in 1637 in a town now known as Quincy, Massachusetts. Puritan leaders there banned Thomas Morton’s “New English Canaan” because they found it to be a harsh critique of the sect’s customs and power structure.
It is remarkable that book-banning has survived America’s evolution since then, given the importance of the printed word in the American Revolution and the creation of democratic governance, including the First Amendment.
In recent years, book-banning efforts have come from both ends of the political spectrum. Currently, it is very much a weapon of the right, with would-be censors demanding the elimination of books dealing with race, gender and sexual identity and other matters that supposedly pose a threat to children and the republic itself.
Parents are entitled to determine what their children may read, but not to determine what other parents’ children may read. Yet, advocacy groups like Moms for Liberty and No Left Turn in Education demand compliance with their own views from school boards and libraries, while charging those institutions with indoctrination.
The best way to preserve literal, civic and cultural literacy and the health of the republic’s body politic — which relies on the free flow of information — is to ban book bans.
Illinois, New York and New Jersey have done so. Now state Sen. Amanda M. Cappelletti, a Montgomery County Democrat, plans to introduce a bill to add Pennsylvania to the list.
It’s badly needed. PEN American, a nonprofit collaboration of writers and readers, has reported that at least 27 Pennsylvania school districts banned books over the past school year.
Cappelletti rightly contends that banning book bans isn’t a partisan issue. It polls strongly across the spectrum, which makes sense because book bans almost always result from pressure by a highly motivated minority.
Lawmakers should pass the law to ensure that Pennsylvania adults may decide for themselves what they and their children should read.
— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS
