Memo to Rep. Gerald Allen and at least half of Alabama: YOU ARE DUMB.
Ah, Alabama. Colloquially known as "The South of the South". Take Louisiana, remove all the jazz, leave in all the pigfucking, and you've got Alabama, the headquarters of the fight against the Civil Rights movement, home of George Wallace, where the natural beauty of the land is nicely accentuated by the flickering light from all the burning crosses.
Lest you think, by the way, that I am condemning Alabama for the sins of a less enlightened time and a previous generation, I present to you as evidence the recount underway on Amendment Two even as we speak.
Amendment Two would remove the following provisions from the Alabama State Constitution: mandating separate schools for white and colored children, imposing poll taxes to keep black people from voting, and, in a 1956 amendment, the declaration that there is no constitutional right to a public education, adopted in an attempt to keep their schools segregated. While all of this stuff can't go on because of federal court rulings, it's still part of the state constitution. The recount on Amendment Two, taking place in the YEAR 2004, is required because the amendment was DEFEATED by a couple of thousand votes.
Opponents of removing segregation from the state constitution say they're not racist fucking Klan-sympathising rednecks, they just figure that if public education isn't constitutionally denied, activist liberal judges will make them spend money on their shitty Alabama schools. These opponents aren't too concerned that this could tarnish Alabama's sterling image as a beacon of hope, freedom, and equality. IT'S ACTUAL PIGFUCKER QUOTE TIME!
"We're too concerned about the image of this state as compared to others. I hear about Wisconsin, where a maniac shoots six people, or California, where men are marrying men and women are marrying women." - Former state GOP chairman Elbert Peters, who, for fuck's sake, is named ELBERT. Here's a newsflash for Elbert, which, if his telecom infrastructure is anything like his mindset, will be delivered to him in the hands of a dead messenger on a horse with four arrows in his back sometime in mid-2005: Half of the voters in Wisconsin did not vote to SHOOT SIX HUNTERS. A few dozen (nullified, I might add) gay marriages in California are not equivalent to disenfranchising millions because of their skin color. And for fuck's sake, you're named ELBERT.
Having now established, at length, my bonafides for thinking that Alabama is full of backwards pigfuckery in white hoods, let's move on to Gerald Allen, Republican representative from, and I am not making this up, "Cottondale". Rep. Allen is sick and tired of his government supporting the rampant, straight-converting agenda of Team Selfish Hedonism, and feeling a little bit rambunctious in post-election red-state America, has proposed an elegant, time-honored, traditional means of dealing with the problem:
GET RID OF ALL THE FAG-BOOKS.
Yes, Allen's bill would ban the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle". Any novels with gay protagonists or characters, any textbooks that say homosexuality is genetic or not a bad thing, "Heather Has Two Mommies", all of these books would, if his bill passes, have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. I'm not exaggerating. This is what Allen said. He specifically suggested taking all these books and burying them in a "big, big hole". Which makes me think he's a little bit latent, but that's just me.
And don't think you pervy straight folks are getting off easy* either. Any books that contain any content that contradicts Alabama's paleolithic sodomy and sexual misconduct laws go in the Big Big Hole too, if Allen has his way. None of those pesky blowjobs, no premarital sex. Alabama libraries, already bordering on oxymoron status, will be reduced to two bibles, the one Garfield book in which everyone's favorite lazy cat eats neither hot dogs nor muffins, and several hundred Ford pickup truck repair manuals. The only bright side is, the circulation rate should barely nudge.
To be fair, though, Allen's bill probably won't pass. I mean, the thought that Alabama lawmakers would vote for such a wide-ranging, vague, repulsive act of censorship and book burning is practically unthinkable. After all, it's not like this is some kind of murky, gray-area, divisive issue like SEGREGATION.
Win or lose, of course, Allen's already got what he really wanted. Publicity, face time on local news, and presumably the continued support of the racist, homophobic pigfuckers in Cottondale who put him in office in the first place. Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama, where reading makes you queer and the constitution keeps the darkies in their place. Hooray* for America!
* So to speak.