Nice to be able to report that Cumberland City Council undid a bit of stupidity it enacted last week:
A controversial ban on same-sex parenting books at libraries in part of western Sydney has been overturned at a marathon late-night meeting after large crowds of protesters clashed outside the council chambers.
Cumberland city councillors voted 13-2 in front of a crowded public gallery on Wednesday night to revoke the ban, two weeks after it was introduced.
The council’s u-turn followed a widespread backlash and a warning from the NSW government that Cumberland risked losing its library funding.
Councillors narrowly voted on 1 May to “take immediate action to rid same-sex parents books/materials in council’s library service”. During the meeting, the councillor who put forward the motion, former mayor Steve Christou, brandished a book he alleged had received “really disturbing” constituent complaints, saying parents were “distraught” to see the book, A Focus On: Same-Sex Parents by Holly Duhig, displayed on a shelf in the children’s section of the library.
At a fiery meeting on Wednesday, Christou attempted to have same-sex parenting books restricted to the adults’ section of the library.
When that failed, his Our Local Community party colleague Paul Garrard tried to have the same restriction placed just on Duhig’s book.
Ultimately, all but two councillors supported a motion put forward by Labor’s Kun Huang to reverse the ban and ensure all books were catalogued according to national library guidelines, including having Duhig’s book in the junior non-fiction section.
Eddy Sarkis was the only councillor who supported Christou.
Labor councillor Mohamad Hussein, who had voted for the ban originally, changed his vote at the last minute. Hussein declined to comment when asked by journalists why he had changed his mind.
Notably, the 15 council members who voted tonight were more numerous than those who voted for the ban, cos there were only 11 councillors there that time. Almost like Christou, a far-right shit of several years’ standing, was exploiting the other four’s absence to make it easier to push his ban through or something. Anyway, the grand plan came undone and a bit of sense prevailed for once; Christou succeeded in getting drag queen story time events banned at Cumberland libraries despite the fact that none were planned and none had indeed ever happened in the first place, so I quite like seeing him be told to go fuck himself in this fashion.
Shannon Molloy at News, on the other hand, had an interesting take on the affair; after describing a couple of books full of horrors, he makes this “shocking” revelation:
I’m talking about the Bible and the Quran, of course.
If we’re applying Cumberland City councillor Steve Christou’s same logic about what’s appropriate in a library, then surely those holy books have to go too.
Mr Christou’s opposition to a book about kids with two mums or two dads was to prevent the “sexualisation” of children.
The book in question isn’t remotely sexual. It’s about families.
If Mr Christou is really, truly concerned about the welfare of children and saving them from content that’s inappropriate, he mustn’t waste any time.
He should immediately call a vote of the council and push for the removal of the Bible and Quran from Cumberland’s libraries.
To not do so would expose shocking double standards, which I’m sure he doesn’t hold.
Of course, I’m being facetious.
I’m gay, but I’m also a Christian with a deep fondness for the teachings of Christ. I’m in favour of the freedom of religious practice, no matter the brand of one’s faith.
But the metaphor I’ve used here shows how absurd and hypocritical Mr Christou and the council’s book ban is.
It also demonstrates that censorship – which flies in the face of an open and free society and the democratic values we hold dear – is a very slippery slope.
I don’t know why, but I feel like brother Shannon wouldn’t actually be that bothered if the Qur’an did get pulled from libraries…
Anyway, according to Leo Puglisi on Twitter (yes, I KNOW what I said in the last post; I saw this bit earlier before it went to shit), the book in question has apparently been borrowed ONCE in the five or so years that it’s been in the Cumberland library system. It’s so dangerous that hardly anyone’s read it… and, funnily enough, Steve Christou himself had to admit to being among its millions of non-readers. Because OBVIOUSLY. The only thing I worry about in all this is that the silly cunt might look at all this bullshit and decide he needs to up his homophobia game. Or maybe he’ll just go back to racism. I don’t want to say anything more in case I give him ideas.
Amazing. After introducing laws requiring photo ID at polling booths (which, ironically, he was violently opposed to when he was a journalist two decades earlier; amazing what becoming PM does to you), de Pfeffel forgot to bring his. All he had to do was go home and get it and come back, which he did, but I imagine he was fuming while he did so, cos EVERYONE would’ve known it was him anyway but they had to uphold the rules cos he introduced them. The world political situation is so vile at the moment that I’ll happily take even a small moment of levity from it…
Unbelievable, but I saw it with my own eyes and screenshotted it myself: Alex Jones just said something… acceptable. When he says “fuck Adolf Hitler”, that’s something that actually normal and sane people would agree with.