So what was in the email to have caused such a reaction? Well let me give you a little background about my sister-in-law. When I was first married, she and I were fairly close. We lived in different worlds, she a house wife and a mother of 3 children. I was a young, military wife and college student full of optimism and dreams. They were largely poor, but had a loving family, something that I greatly admired about my husbands family. A few years after I married into the family, she decided she wanted to have another baby. I found this odd because financially they were unable to make ends meet with the children they already had. She would tell me how she had to charge their groceries on a credit card, that she didn't know how they were going to make ends meet, and how lucky Larry and I were because we had all this extra money to travel (luck had nothing to do with it), etc... . So I was surprised at this choice to have another mouth to feed. I got the feeling she was grabbing a straws about what to do with her life now that the children were getting older.
I have always been at odds with this type of thinking. I have been told to my face that Larry and I are selfish because we don't have children. WE are selfish? Hummm. See... now I find CHOOSING to have a child, knowing full well you have no means to care for the child, even feed the child, meanwhile continuing to live off your parents while in your mid 30s sounds just a wee bit more selfish than making a decision not to have a child until it is determined, by us, the right time to do so. Not to mention that once she had this child she realized that they might have to go bankrupt. Her response was to ask her parents, my husband's parents, to buy them a house so they could get out of their financial problems.
This is when things got bad, and sadly haven't really gotten better between her and I. Larry and I finally put our foot down and told her to stop expecting her parents to keep bailing her out. We all make choices and we all have to live with them. Finally, the light bulb went off in her head when she realized she was about to lose everything. She decided, with her parents help of course, to go back to school to become a teacher. She did it, and I admire her for finally taking the bull by the horns and being responsible for her own choices.
What does this all have to do with the email? Well, about the same time that crisis hit, she found a new level of God, or maybe religion might be more appropriate. Now I understand we all have our own paths to take, and it is usually during a low point that we began to see we are not alone and that there is a light reaching out and within each of us. She was already a religious person, but this event took it to a whole new level. Suddenly, she became a fundamentalist and extremely judgmental towards any non Christian or even a Christian that wasn't her type of Christian (moi included). She started watching the 700 club and fully embraced their bigotry and hatred all under the guises of Christianity. I will admit here that as I criticize her for her "extreme" beliefs, I know that I am not perfect and have been known to say things against another I later regret. I do make mistakes. The difference is that I know that I do, and try to make amends for it if possible.
After this happened (her conversion to extreme faith), the family dinner discussions became very ugly and nasty. Suddenly this "love in Christ" family had no problem bashing a Muslim or a Jehovah Witness, not to mention anyone (including myself) that wasn't on the Bush/Evangelical crusade to make this country a "Christian America." As I respect all opinions, I chose not to make it an issue, but the result was that neither I nor my husband wanted to spend Thanksgiving dinner listening to tirades about the "liberal" media and the "evil" ACLU, or about those damn "environmentalist" getting in the way of "progress" (knowing full well I was and I am very passionate about the environment). It made me extremely uncomfortable and my stomach upset.
The "relationship" between me and my sister-in-law now consists of forwarded emails from her usually consisting of either political bashing of one person or party, a religious email bashing one religion or another, or a nice mixture of the two. My normal response is to hit the delete button before it downloads. Last night, however, I received a rather venomous email of which I could not ignore. It had to do with the book and upcoming movie, The Golden Compass.
The guts of the email is fear based on an Atheist writer and how he and his books are out to convert all children into little atheist creatures of the night. It is obvious that most likely the person that wrote the email, and those hitting the forward button have not read this or any of this author's books. The book was not what was important to me, but rather this reasoning that somehow the people (writing and condoning the information within the email) have convinced themselves that this book will somehow make children anti-Christians and devil worshippers therefore it behoves us all to ban/boycott this book from the shelves of our youth. The context of the email has undertones that an evil "book reader" might slip your kid a little som'n like a page or two of the book, and if that happens....well hold on because your child will now become a full fledged Satan worshipper that wants gay people to have the right to be married! Oh the horror of it all!
What a slippery slope, don't ya think? And why is that all of these people so eager to rid society of this piece of literature, have given over so much power over to a book? Fear rules them, not Christ. How could one of such strong faith be so easily converted to evil because of a book about a little girl's adventures, a parallel world, and souls that take the form of animals? Even if they do find the material offensive, no one is holding their hand over a flame and making them read this book or watch the movie, yet they feel compelled to do what they can to remove this book from the lives of all children. Isn't that a personal and familial decision based on what that person or family decides is right for them and them alone?
Imagine a world without To kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlett Letter, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, or even The Bible (gasp!). All these books, to name a few, have been either banned or contested at one time or another. Some are still being contested. Can you imagine these works not being apart of our literature collections? Now I am not saying The Golden Compass is on par with these novels, but if they can be banned why couldn't anything or everything? Who determines what is "approved" and what isn't. I'll tell you who...YOU and no one else. How far will things have to go before people start opening their minds and using that brain God gave them? Will we have to relive yet another period of book burning before people start to see how their fear and actions based in fear will corrupt our society?
As my blood began to curdle, I felt I needed to tell my sister-in-law where I stood on the subject of censorship, and the moral, Christian elite. I dare say I probably pissed her off, so what's new? I just cannot stand by and not say anything when it comes to books. I believe it blackens the heart of this country. It is her choice, not some propaganda machine, to decide if it is appropriate material for her children. Start taking back your own power dear sister-in-law, you'll find freedom of choice and a fearless strength in your faith.
Is it me, or do I sound Republican here? Strange...who would have thought that would ever happen?
Just in case your interested: a list of banned/contested books.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
~Ray Bradbury
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