One of America’s greatest journalists, H.L. Mencken, was arrested in 1926 in Boston for selling a magazine that contained a story about a prostitute who sought forgiveness at the Methodist church. The Watch and Ward Society – a citizens group empowered by officials to uphold the city’s obscenity laws – had deemed that American Mercury edition to be obscene.
The courts ultimately sided with Mencken given the First Amendment, but the episode led to the phrase, “Banned in Boston.” The term became a recommendation rather than a warning. If a work of trashy fiction was banned there, then it certainly would draw readers. Soon we might see the term “Banned in Huntington Beach” used in a similar fashion if the City Council continues on its current path.
The council majority, energized by the latest moral panic common in conservative circles, voted 4-3 to set up its own version of the Watch and Ward Society to police books that are available to children in the city’s public libraries. The council has created a 21-person citizens’ panel to review new and existing books for sexual references or content and assure they meet “community standards.”
This will lead to a level of absurdity rarely seen in modern America. Community scolds will use their own particular judgments to ban – and, sorry, but not allowing such books is tantamount to banning them – books about gender issues. It will also lead to bans of serious literature, much of which has sexual references that will make some self-appointed upholder of community standards nervous.
It also may lead to lawsuits. The resolution “would impose an unconstitutional censorship regime on the people’s right to access library books and materials protected by the First Amendment,” wrote a group of free-speech advocates in a letter to the council.
Typically, librarians use their professional judgment. They don’t always get it right, but it’s better than having politicians and their appointed Karens make those choices. To understand why, we’d urge the council majority to read Mencken, but we doubt his books would make it past their book banners.
