levite

Well, if we're still only talking about school libraries, then yeah, I probably would agree that it might be a little difficult to defend Madonna's Sex or The New Joy of Gay Sex on the shelves-- although, to be fair, I'm not sure anyone would consider those books either great literature or of sufficiently relevant interest to any research a student is likely to be doing in a school library to outweigh the obvious issues with them. But I would think there's no possible reason to exclude Daddy's Roommate from a library (school or otherwise) except for homophobia [I'm not necessarily accusing you of anything, Ustwo, I'm speaking in general]. A book about toleration, acceptance, and how those qualities are presented to children seems fairly unobjectionable, unless one happens to be intolerant and unaccepting and intent on passing those qualities on to children....

If we're talking public libraries of the regular sort, though, then I don't think anything should be banned or excluded from the shelves, even books I find repugnant. Free speech is free speech, and knowledge is dependent upon free access to information.

Yes, I suppose, as you say, one might raise an educated, sophisticated kid without having them read a single book that's been banned; but since the list seems to include a mighty heavy swath of the greats of English and American literature, it seems possible, but unlikely.

Also, in general terms, I believe restricting free speech, free press, and free access to information is a very slippery slope. I tend to believe we must restrict those things as little as possible, lest we suddenly find it being ever more difficult to speak freely, write freely, and know what is going on in the world around us....

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)