Part of the facts of the controversy are based on a 1996 article by reporter Paul Stuart for the Frontiersman. (Frontiersman)
Assembly of God ministers are well-known in Wasilla for taking strong positions on moral issues, including this recent sermon by the current pastor: “Everybody in the world has a guilty conscience. That’s why homosexuals wants laws of the land to justify their sin because they have a guilty conscience.”
Around the time Palin became mayor, the church and other conservative Christians began to focus on certain books available in local stores and in the town library, including one called ‘Go Ask Alice,’ and another written by a local pastor, Howard Bess, called ‘Pastor, I Am Gay’
While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day. [Snopes confirms this letter]
According to Anchorage Daily News, Palin asked Wasilla’s librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. The librarian replied that she would definitely not be all right with it. [Truth or Fiction confirms]
“I was shocked. Mary Ellen sat up straight and said something along the line of, ‘The books in the Wasilla Library collection were selected on the basis of national selection criteria for libraries of this size, and I would absolutely resist all efforts to ban books.'” [Rindi White, Anchorage Daily News]
In December 1996, Emmons, now Mary Ellen Baker, told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her — starting before she was sworn in — about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job. [McClatchy Newspapers]
TIME reports former Wasilla Mayor John Stein says that as mayor Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books.”
Truth or Fiction has also discovered the first list from Sarah Pallin is not from the minutes of the Wasilla Library Board revealing books she requested to remove, that this link and others to a list of books Mayor Sarah Palin submitted for removal, is false. My previous post exaggerated in duplicating this eRumor, but thanks to Dave I located the facts.
If the book list looks familiar it is because many of these titles and works are listed in the American Library Association’s list of frequently challenged books.
Once a year, the American Library Association celebrates National Banned Book Week at public libraries all over the country in the spirit of celebrating the freedom to read.
| A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Blubber by Judy Blume Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Canterbury Tales by Chaucer Carrie by Stephen King Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Christine by Stephen King Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Cujo by Stephen King Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Decameron by Boccaccio East of Eden by John Steinbeck Fallen Angels by Walter Myers Fanny Hill by John Cleland Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes Forever by Judy Blume Grendel by John Champlin Gardner Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam Harry Potter, Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter, Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter, Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling Have to Go by Robert Munsch Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Impressions edited by Jack Booth In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Lord of the Flies by William Golding Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein Lysistrata by Aristophanes More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz |
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James and Christopher Collier My House by Nikki Giovanni My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara Night Chills by Dean Koontz Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer One Day in The Life of Ivan by Alexander Solzhenitsyn One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Ordinary People by Judith Guest Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Collective Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl Scary Stories: More Tales by Alvin Schwartz Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz Separate Peace by John Knowles Silas Marner by George Eliot Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Bastard by John Jakes The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier The Color Purple by Alice Walker The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks The Living Bible by William C. Bower The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare The New Teenage Body Book by McCoy and Wibbelsman The Pigman by Paul Zindel The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders The Shining by Stephen King The Witches by Roald Dahl The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts by Edna Barth |