So I called the librarian who said to talk to the principal who never called me back. So I called the superintendent who said he would talk to the principal and knew the magazine to be good --and would have the principal call me. He didn't.
So many months later, I called the sup't. again who said he'd talk to the principal again and the principal called me.
He said he thought these would be nice to make available to the Campus Life Club but to have them in the library, the board would have to approve them. I said, I was on the board for 8 years, and I don't remember approving the new purchases or the donations received by the library. And I knew there were things in our library and on our reading lists for students that I and other Christian parents personally would not approve --such as The Invisible Man, the one which starts out with the incest and 3 in a bed. And that dreary book we all had to read before college featuring the debauched and jaded and mixed up Holden Caulfield -- books with profane language. Depressing books with suicide and death themes and occultic themes. I'll bet they have The Golden Compass Trilogy by the atheist promoting atheism to kids. Teachers showed R-rated films to kids under 16 --kids in 8th and 9th grade when my children were in school. Books featuring native American religious beliefs were common.
But when it comes to something wholesome and of the Christian religion, we are more worried about the appearance of state endorsement of that --than about state endorsement of atheism, loss of faith, bad language, immoral conduct, or other religions, etc.
Judy Blume books are in our libraries for children and are an example of themes that Christians object to. There is the one wherein a boy is a peeping tom --and at story's end, isn't sure if he'll quit that behavior or not. "Maybe I will; maybe I won't." And the one where the child is encouraged to "choose" her religion as though religions were just another life option. Yes, religion is a life option, but that's not the way parents who really believe want their children to see it. We devout people teach our children that our religion is Truth. We don't appreciate books and faculty who take our money to undermine or erode our religious teachings. In fact, it's because schools do this that so many parents are either home schooling or sending their children to religious schools, at great personal expense.
The school principal and I agreed that he would round up all the back issues if the library kept them and make them available for summer reading for the Campus Life Club attenders through the club. Meanwhile, I need to write the board of education and donate the magazines to the school library and give them sample copies and reasons why I think they should approve the donation. I think the libraries can rightly have Catholic Youth publications, Muslim Youth publications--or whatever religious youth magazines people want to donate. There aren't so many wanting to do this that it would overflow the magazine racks. And then I'd let the students take them at the end of the school year.
Campus Life helps students deal with real issues like parents' divorce, breaking up with steadies, drug and alcohol abuse and temptation, peer pressure, study techniques, friends, moral issues, fashion, Christian music, religious questions and they provide college guides to Christian schools. They also have a lot of humor and practical helps pertinent to a teen-ager's life.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
