What bugs me is the way people like this grasp a single word and allow it to haul the entire thing down with the ship. I love Sedaris. He makes me laugh so hard that I cry half the time I read his work. He is a homosexual. He talks about this in his essays. So what. His exemplary writing is hardly a how-to guide to homosexuality. It just infuriates me. It is so offensive on so many levels. Did any of those parents read the story?? I LIKE GUYS tackles heavy themes....homophobia and racism in the time of desegregation. They see gay and run for cover. Stupid, stupid people.
I agree with all of this, and you've expressed the proper response in your last sentence. I find myself in agreement with robeieio here, it's not really "censorship". It is what you called it, stupidity. And everyone who thinks so should get their voices out there and make damn sure these idiots are exposed in no uncertain terms.
As a relevant digression, we have a current local controversy going on about a proposed gay-rights ordinance before our city council. The local televangelist, a guy named
Doctor Jerry Prevo, has organized a big anti-ordinance turnout for hearings, going so far as to charter fly-ins of people from as far away as Colorado to overwhelm the city council. They have had an admirable amount of local resistance response. My son, just turned 21, spent a week crafting an extraordinary and passionate statement, and waited several evening, in line, among more than 500 signups, to get to the podium and present it. He started it by thanking the people who had shown up via
Doctor Prevo's urging, for demonstrating with complete clarity why the ordinance needs passage.
(It will pass the city council, and be vetoed by the mayor, who is one of Prevo's minions; the council doesn't have enough votes to override; but that's a less relevant digression).
Point being: You don't always need a legislative victory to achieve victory. Let the sonsabitches prevent the stories from being read as class assignments. I guarantee you all of the interested students thereby prevented from reading them for class credit will go out and find out
why their parents did that prevention. It probably has sold several books for Sedaris.
caw
