At bougie cocktail parties only one answer works regarding a contemporary conflict: “Book banners are bad and must be stopped.”

Despite self-righteous and obligatory platitudes against book bans, all libraries censor books and all of them must. No library contains every book ever published. Shelving decisions include factors of space limitations, budgets and content.

Our contemporary sociopolitical division has book-banning conflicts raging throughout the country. Consider a battle in public School District 20 of Colorado Springs, which began in August of 2022.

A Schriever Space Force Base intelligence officer, Ph.D and father of a D-20 middle school student read multiple books offered to all students in the school library. The father contacted Chinook Trail Middle School Principal Tom Andrew to express concerns. He wanted at least five books removed for “inappropriate” content. An ethnically diverse group of other parents, organized as Advocates for D-20 Kids, joined his effort.

Principal Andrew appointed a committee to review the books and decide. One member outed his bias on Facebook.

“The phone rang today it was the principal… ‘Mr. (Tymm) Hoffman, we have a parent who is challenging five books and wants them banned from our library.’ And just like that, I found myself on a panel designed to advocate for or against the banning of these 5 books which are all about or concerning protests… For the record, I am AGAINST the banning of any book…”

Advocates for D-20 Kids issued a statement saying, “We’re not ‘book banners’ we’re concerned parents and there are some things a 6th grader doesn’t need to see or read.”

Books in question include:

? “Steal this Country.” Excerpt: To help the illegal immigrants, “Fight to keep ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) out of your school…” Translation: young children should “fight” federal law enforcement officers.

? “We Are Not Yet Equal.” Excerpts: “The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement… “Reagan was a master of racism with plausible deniability.”

? “How I Resist.” Excerpts: “Maybe it’s building a huge Trump puppet sitting on a toilet with the words HOME POOPER eight feet high.”

“When the beast we call Trump was declared president-elect, I felt the call for community anew.”

We “have the ‘Make America Stop Being Such an A–hole’ hats (without letters redacted), ‘Keep Your Laws Off My Gender Fluids’ hoodies and my personal favorite the Delta Sigma Tau swimsuits with a shark crotch and the tag ‘Grab at your own risk…’ “

“The image… put Mitch McConnell’s dying turtle mouth right over Aunt Zippee’s Precious Portal. On the plus side, I’m pretty sure it’s the closest Pence has been to some lady parts in a while.”

“Are you sure Mike Pence is allowed to be alone near your left rib? What if he accidentally makes a woman out of it?”

? “Protest Movements: Then and Now.” Excerpt: “Those with power, and the politically conservative, typically feel strong opposition to the fight for change. They criticize those who protest as unpatriotic and ungrateful for what they have… They will fight change with legal and sometimes physical means.”

All books in question embrace Critical Race Theory, telling ethnic minorities and LGBTQ students they are victims of a society controlled by white racists. They must fight to revolutionize their country.

Book-review committee members chose to retain all the challenged books, deeming them appropriate.

Having lost their battle to remove content – politically charged, sexually explicit books hostile to the United States — a parent donated 10 books to balance library content.

The books include: “Tucker for President;” “The Puritans”; “The Antifa”; “Little Mission on the Clearwater”; “Firey”; “Climate Confusian”; “Amy Coney Barret;” “American Familia;” “Always Erin;” and “All Lies Matter.”

Principal Andrew appointed another committee – composed of him, a teacher and two “media personnel” — to review the donated books. The committee banned them all. The books, Andrew wrote, “will not be added to the school library.” His committee consulted “reputable, professionally selected aids and district approved vendors” to decide.

Parents, check your children’s libraries. Most will contain books promoting the far-left’s anti-American and racially divisive agenda. Fair enough; it’s a free society. Or maybe it’s not. As seen in D-20, literature unhelpful to progressive indoctrination may get banned by committees of experts.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board