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| Anti - This Article has been written by elycia - Legal policy regarding the censorship of children's literature is not exactly clear-cut. In the United States, the First Amendment allows for free speech and for freedom of the press, allowing all types of material to be published regardless of content. However, laws for minors are different than for adults, and parents have the inalienable right to shield their children from material they perceive has harmful. While the First Amendment provides Americans the right to say and print what they want, parents also have the right to limit their children's access to such material. Legislation written in order to give parents a greater say in what types of media are available to minors is constantly being presented before Congress. For example, the 1996 Communications Decency Act sought to regulate the information available to minors. Specifically, it called for criminal penalties for anyone who makes, creates, or solicits and initiates the transmission of any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image or other communication, which is obscene or indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age. (LaMay 1-2) The Communications Decency Act specifically was written with the Internet in mind, but the wording can be applied to children's literature. If one party deems the content of a piece of literature as "obscene" then the author, who knowingly published the books for people "under the age of 18," could be tried as a criminal. In June and July of 1996 a 3-judge federal panel and the U.S. Justice Department deemed that the Act was unconstitutional, and in March of 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed (LaMay 2).
The censorship debate in the U.S. often calls upon the "separation of church and state" argument. The banning of books in schools is almost entirely based on religious and moral beliefs. Public schools argue that those types of moral judgments have no place in the public system, and yet both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence have repeated uses of the word "God." The ruling in this case states that schools do indeed have the right to use their own spiritual and moral beliefs to make judgments on the material their children are exposed to.
She goes onto say that the books are "as dangerous to children as a child molester" (Sapsted 4). Many parents in both the U.K. and U.S. agree with Rookwood. Formal attempts to ban the books have been made in New York and Michigan, as well as grassroots attempts in individual schools such as Lakeville, MN (Draper B1). |
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