Popnography
CONTACTAbout UsCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2025 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
Scroll To Top
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
Take Baby Be-Bop, the 1997 installment of Block's legendary Weetzie Bat young adult series, which chronicles the coming out -- complete with gay-bashing -- of a teenage character. Twelve years after its publication its been named in a claim against the city of West Bend, Wisc., by four members of the Milwaukee-area Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU). Calling the book "explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian," "the complainants seek the right to publicly burn or destroy by another means the library's copy of Baby Be-Bop. The claim also demands $120,000 in compensatory damages ($30,000 per plaintiff) for being exposed to the book in a library display, and the resignation of West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss for 'allow[ing] this book to be viewed by the public.'"
Let's break that down. A group of grown-ups want to rally around a burning trash can, remove an elected public official from office, and pocket $30,000 public dollars a piece because they were "exposed" to a decade-old story the American Library Association called "[A] gift to young people who have known since they could remember that they too wanted -- and deserved -- love" as if it were asbestos.
Never mind the time and money the city will have to waste fighting such a juvenile, selfish, and regressive claim. (Last week library trustees unanimously rejected another complaint against certain YA titles deemed "biased, gay-affirming, promotional and romanticized" after more than a thousand local people signed a petition against restricting library materials.) Think for a second of what, in addition to Caribbean cruises and remodeled kitchens, the CCLU members are really demanding -- their comfort, material and otherwise, in exchange for that of the young people that need it most.
--JESSANNE COLLINS
Previously >Heathers 2: 2 Scary?
Latest Stories
Pride lives here: Why West Hollywood still sets the standard
May 12 2025 8:06 PM
Meet the hot and sexy queer men of 'Elska Chisinau'
May 12 2025 6:12 PM
Jennifer Coolidge shouts out 'excited gay students' in commencement speech
May 12 2025 5:07 PM
Pedro Pascal (sort of) returns to 'The Last of Us'
May 12 2025 4:57 PM
Why Hari Nef needed to write the Candy Darling biopic herself
May 12 2025 3:58 PM
Russell Tovey calls UK Supreme Court's trans ruling 'f***ing horrible'
May 12 2025 1:13 PM
Vivian Wilson meets 'Drag Race' queens and makes fierce runway debut
May 12 2025 9:54 AM
'All Stars 10's Aja comes out as bisexual, says she's 'been in denial'
May 12 2025 8:44 AM
Miley Cyrus cries over a doomed relationship this New Music Friday
May 09 2025 6:23 PM