My Fantasy Novels Shall Tear Down Your God!

I found this directory of various books that people (pretty much always adults) had asked be banned from libraries fascinating. Fascinating...and really, really sad. Honestly, the reasons these people give are more than ridiculous - a dictionary was banned for having definitions of sex! Isn't that what a dictionary is supposed to do? (Tangent: The Linguistic Mystic's Take on why censoring dictionaries is really, really stupid.) Predictably, there was a lot of depressing "It has gay characters!" reasons and "OMG...it talks about sex!". However, the thing I found most ridiculous was how many books were banned for having "anti-religious messages". It's a sad day when a book can be banned for having "criticisms of Christianity" or having subtext of "anti-Catholocism". Because honestly? These are fiction books. I would say "Yes, you can be offended" if a library had a book like "Christians, You All Suck", but really. To see what I mean, "The Golden Compass" was called anti-religious.

"(2007) Philip Pullman's book The Golden Compass was challenged at the Shallowater Middle School because of it's [sic] 'anti-religious messages.'"

What...the...huh? Alright, I have read The Golden Compass. I wasn't a big fan of it, but there was nothing "anti-religious" in there. And several of these books are simply fantasy books without religion in them at all, or with different religions in the fantasy world. Do religious people really think that the residents of Oz need to believe in God? Do they not realize how idiotic that is? Just because the people in Abarat swear to "A'zo and Cha" doesn't mean that the book is anti-religious!

Also, so many of the books on here are great, and/or classics. The people who are trying to ban Anne Frank's Diary remind me of the people trying to ban Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - look, uptight parents: They're good, historic books. AFD is an important part of education for many young people. And guess what? Many of us want to read books. Shocker, right? I don't care if books have "objectionable content" or are "harmful to minors". (Second tangent: Isn't it amusing how adults, who are not minors, are deciding what's right for minors?) I want to read them, damnit.

I know at least one story about how "White Fang" was challenged for being so graphic about the violence against White Fang. I read this book in third grade, and it's been one of my favorite books since, so much that I've re-read it twice since then. And guess what? The violence in the book not only did not bother me, but was necessary. People did, and do, abuse animals like this. Yet, adults want to censor everything and keep us in the dark about anything that's not "RELIGION IS AWESOME!" and "bunnies and unicorns...happy world!"

Oh yeah, and I really didn't care about profanity or sexual content either. We're not all delicate little flowers who will break down at the sight of vehement language. But of course, we're minors, so how should we know what's right for us, right guys?