“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.”* The Young Turks hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian break it down.
*Read more here fromAlison Flood / The Guardian:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/09/bone-head-lawmakers-in-south-carolina-try-to-censor-books-with-gay-friendly-themes/