Massachusetts News: An Independent News Source for Massachusetts Politics

Part Three: Chelsea Library and Judge Tauro Censored in 1978

Part Two: Have Librarians Become the 'Book Burners'?

Part One: Mass. Libraries Are Censoring Books

Basic Books of Conservative Thought Are Censored by Mass. Librarians

By Atty. J. Edward Pawlick
May 30, 2002

For the last three years, the Minuteman Library Network has been promoting an Internet pedophile site from Chicago for both boys and girls.

There's been an interesting development since we last looked at the site which is located in Chicago. The mail address is now listed as a Post Office Box in Washington, DC, which makes it look even more like a one-person pedophile site - and the pedophile has moved.

The site has a chat room and a resident expert who will answer all questions about sex. Experts say this is a sure sign that a pedophile is active. The site advises children to "Just Say Yes" to sexual intercourse. Its name is, "Coalition for Positive Sexuality." It is the Minuteman's first recommendation for answers to questions about sexuality.

Just say yes to sex is what 35 suburban Boston libraries are telling teenagers and they are directing them to a pedophile for their personal questions about sex. (Click here to see the full-size site.)

At the site, the children are told right at the beginning to "demand" the information from their parents and others, and that they have a "right" to "complete and honest sex education."

Next, they are told they can have a "quick and easy online tour" through important topics for those who are "sexually active now or just thinking about having sex." The tour is labeled, "'Just Say Yes' because we're tired of people telling us what we can and can't do." The children are instructed in "safe" sex, which includes oral sex and anal sex.

The site, which has apparently not changed at all in three years, says that its organization is not welcome at any of the public schools in Chicago.

This action by Minuteman flies in the face of the Wirthlin Worldwide poll, which MassNews commissioned, which shows that 92% of Massachusetts citizens believe that teenagers should not be encouraged to be sexually active.

Is Your Library Censoring What You Can Read?

How To Find Out
What Can You Do About It?

Is your library censoring what you are allowed to read?

You can quickly find out. A good start would be to see if they have any of the eleven books that appear on our list. The best library had eight of the eleven. The towns that are the most "tolerant" had none. It would be good to point out to them that Wellesley has eight.

Make your own list of non-liberal books. If they're not in your library, talk to your librarian and the members of the library board that you elected.

If you're a beginner, you should probably not start with Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. That will bring personal attacks against you because we do not live in a free society. You will be accused of hate. Again, it might be good to point out that Boston University, Boston College and UMass/Amherst all have that book. You might be able to find other libraries that also do.

Please send a Letter to the Editor at MassNews and let us know what happens.

It is amazing that the librarians can be so perverse when they have known for three years about this site. They can no longer act surprised.

The Network removed one other site in July 2000, very quietly without any announcement and added two abstinence sites, after receiving intense pressure from residents after articles in MassNews.

A Private Club

Although the Minuteman Library Network is apparently funded entirely with tax money from federal, state and local governments, it is operated as a private, non-profit corporation.

Therefore, it is not required to hold public meetings or to report to the public in any way.

This is a problem across the entire nation inasmuch as the American Library Association is clearly on record that children have a right to access everything in the library or on the Internet - including pornography.

The action of the libraries in Massachusetts goes way beyond what is happening in the rest of the country. This is not a question of censoring or blocking what teenagers can or should read. This is a question of which sites the library recommends to the students as helpful sites which they are encouraged and urged to visit.

In the Wirthlin poll, which was conducted in 1999, six hundred Massachusetts residents were questioned on many subjects. One of the questions was whether they agreed with the following statement, "Teenagers, regardless of whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, should be encouraged to be sexually active." Ninety-two per cent of the citizens disagreed with the statement. Those who disagreed included all categories of gender and sex. Of those who self-identified as liberals, 91% disagreed with the statement.

When we quietly notified the librarians about the site in April 1999, we had just started and we were still naïve. We believed they would thank us profusely for telling them and they would quickly remove it. We had no idea we were beginning a confrontational brouhaha with the Network. Like most people, we have had a tremendous respect for them over the years because of all the apparent good they have done with the libraries. This experience was a real eye-opening shock. We were wrong. They have a definite "in-your-face" attitude as though a citizen has no right to even question them. We've heard many ridiculous things.

The librarian and his assistant in Dedham told the daily newspaper there that this was a very serious matter, an important question of Freedom of Speech. Did he really believe that? What he's doing by recommending Internet sites to children is analogous to taking the ten "best" book and putting them in a case at the front door and recommending them to the patrons. If the librarians later put one of the books back on the shelf in the stacks where it belongs, no one would say that involved Freedom of Speech. The book would still be there in the library where anyone could read it. It was just not on the "recommended" list anymore. This would be equivalent to removing a website from the list of recommended sites.

One could argue that the site should be filtered out by the library computers, but that is for a different discussion.

It is disheartening to learn that the librarians who are determining what we can and cannot read are incapable of understanding that simple concept.