By Charles Coddington –
So, Aurora mayor Richard Irvin and Library Board chairman John Savage think they are on the right side of history, do they?
I read the controversial poem that was removed from the Aurora Public Library. In fact, I re-read it twice in order to make sure I was reading it correctly. Allegedly, it was meant as a satire, which my good friend Amy Roth claimed last week in The Voice, to shame certain individuals who hold certain views. As a satire, however, it left a lot to be desired. Rather, it smacked of hatefulness, and I’m sure that many saw it that way. It was something one might have heard from David Duke or Richard Spencer, or even Donald J. Trump. It was something one should have given absolutely no credibility.
Nevertheless:
The last time I looked, the United States had not become a fascist dictatorship. America has a Constitution, and the First Amendment to that Constitution guarantees to everyone a right of free speech, short of outright slander. Even hate speech is protected, opinions to the contrary notwithstanding.
A public library stands out as a shining beacon of free expression in its community. One may encounter a wide variety of viewpoints there which caters to a wide variety of human beings. In the 15 years I worked at Aurora Public Library, I handled a lot of materials, some of which pleased me and some of which did not. Yet, I never once demanded that certain materials be removed because they might have offended someone. If you burn one book, you may as well burn them all, as all of them will offend someone at one time or another.
It’s a sad day when censorship rears its ugly head, especially if it occurs in a public library. But that is exactly what happened. An elected official and an appointed official took it upon themselves to decide who shall have free-speech rights and who shall not. These gentlemen owe the good folk of Aurora an apology for their arbitrary actions. They won’t, of course, because the self-righteous never apologize for anything they say or do.
That’s one of the lessons of history, don’t you know?
