South Carolina push to block gay books at university draws writers' fire
Source: The Guardian
South Carolina push to block gay books at university draws writers' fire
Proposed funding cuts for courses teaching LGBT literature
attacked by Richard Ford, Dennis Lehane and others
Alison Flood
theguardian.com, Friday 9 May 2014 13.02 BST
Writers across America are uniting against what the Pulitzer prize-winning authors Richard Ford and Junot Díaz called the "bone-heads in the South Carolina legislature" and "flat-out hate masquerading as concern for 'public sensibility'" after politicians looked to strip funding from two colleges as punishment for teaching books with gay-friendly themes.
The College of Charleston ran into trouble after assigning Alison Bechdel's acclaimed Fun Home to students; the graphic novel details Bechdel's coming out as a lesbian as a teenager, and her relationship with her closeted father. The University of South Carolina Upstate, meanwhile, was teaching a collection of radio stories about being gay, Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio. Earlier this year, funding to the two schools of almost $70,000 (£40,000) was threatened because of the choices, described as pornographic and "forcing an agenda on teenagers" by their opponents; the issue has been under debate in the state senate this week, and authors have been coming together to stand up for LGBTQ rights.
"Only morons and mean children are afraid of free speech and fairness to all," said Gone Baby Gone author Dennis Lehane. Lehane is one of many writers to have taken a photo of themselves wearing an "I'm speaking out; support academic freedom; fight government censorship" T-shirt as part of the Writers Speaking Out campaign launched by Out Loud's publisher Hub City Press.
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Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/09/south-carolina-gay-books-university-writers-richard-ford