GOP Tries to Down Play Palin Anti-Gay Book Ban Issue

As 365gay.com is reporting the Republicans are attempting to down play Sarah Palin's set to with the staff at the Wasilla Public Library. Although it is not clear, one of the books that may have been in controversy was a book by Rev. Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in the nearby town of Palmer entitled "Pastor, I Am Gay." Try as the GOP might to back peddle, it clearly looks like Palin was up to something. Her pastor is clearly an anti-gay whack job. In my view, Palin personifies the danger of Christianists in public office since they seem incapable of not trying to inflict their religious views on everyone. Freedom of religion is a one way street to them. Perhaps Palin needs to move to Iran and join with the mullahs in censoring books. Here are some highlights from 365gay.com:

Shortly after taking office in 1996 as mayor of Wasilla, a city of about 7,000 people, Palin asked the city’s head librarian about banning books. Later, the librarian was notified by Palin that she was being fired, although Palin backed off under pressure.

Palin notified Emmons she would be fired in January 1997 because the mayor didn’t feel she had the librarian’s “full support.” Emmons was reinstated the next day after public outcry, according to newspaper reports at the time. The Rev. Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in the nearby town of Palmer, said the church Palin and her family attended until 2002, the Wasilla Assembly of God, was pushing to remove his book from local bookstores. Emmons told him that year that several copies of “Pastor I Am Gay” had disappeared from the library shelves, Bess said.

“Mayor Palin gave us some terrible moments and some rather gut-wrenching moments, particularly when Mary Ellen said she was going to have to leave,” said Cathy Petrie, who managed the children’s collection at the time. . . According to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspaper, Emmons did not mince words when Palin asked her “how I would deal with her saying a book can’t be in the library” on Oct. 28, 1996, in a week when the mayor had asked department heads for letters of resignation.

Jim Rettig, who heads the American Library Association based in Richmond, Va., suggested that lingering quarrel raises issues that are still relevant as librarians prepare to celebrate Banned Books Week later this month. “Librarians are very committed to the principles of the First Amendment of the Constitution and that means we don’t allow one individual or a group of people to dictate what people can or cannot read,” he said.

As for Palin's probably views on gays, one need look no farther than her pastor who is on the record as maintaining that gays want the laws changed to "justify their sickness" and supporting Daddy Dobson's bogus "pray away the gay" Love Wins Out program. Here are some highlights from PageOne Q:

ABC’s Brian Ross investigated a controversy surrounding Sarah Palin asking about books being removed from the Wasilla library. Rev. Howard Bess a pastor at a local church. Hess said, “She wasn’t just using the religious right to get elected. She was one of them.” Ross’ investigation uncovered video of a recent sermon at the church Palin attended in Wasilla. The current pastor said, “Everybody in the world has a guilty conscience. That’s why homosexuals want laws of the land to justify their sickness. They have a guilty conscience.”