LETTERS: WHAT IS VIRTURE OF BANNED BOOKS?

To the editor:

This past week our library was professing its virtues as a champion of freedom. It does this by encouraging its patrons to read a banned book.

In the past, some of the books banned were acceptable to a large section of society: "Tom Sawyer," Webster's dictionary, "Of Mice and Men," the Bible.

But many were very unacceptable to a large section of society: "Lolita," Madonna's "Sex," "Heather Has Two Moms."

Freedom of choice seems to be the ideal celebrated by Banned Books Week supporters, as well as promoting the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

The American Library Association defends these viewpoint books and, at the same time, stands in a supposedly neutral position stating that "while the desire to protect children from inappropriate sexual content or offensive language is commendable, only parents have the right and the responsibility to restrict access to their -- and only their -- children."

The ALA defends the right to produce immoral literature, and it helps support these individuals by purchasing such materials. Next they gather questionably immoral books into a display for youths and then encourage children to read a banned book. Under the guise of freedom, they cover their amoral lack of responsibility for the outcome of making this material available to our children.

This doesn't sound like freedom. What is does sound like is the ALA promoting immoral viewpoints.

We as a society have to start discerning if it is truly a virtue to champion an amoral, total-freedom-of-choice idealism -- and the cost our society is paying for it.

If it were truly a virtue, I believe it would reflect the definition of virtue: goodness, right action and thinking, morality, the quality of moral excellence, righteousness and responsibility, conformity to a standard of morality as by abstention from vices. By definition, a lot of books today could not even come close.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. -- Phillippians 4:8

BRUCE COLLIER

Cape Girardeau