Chicago, Ill., Oct 7, 2009 / 00:48 am
An organization for people who have left homosexuality is asking the American Library Association (ALA) to include “ex-gay” books in its annual Banned Books Week.
The Chicago-based Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) said in a press release that it has tried to secure a statement from the ALA opposing “the censorship of ex-gay books.”
“According to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, ALA policy recommends diversity in book collection development by libraries, regardless of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. However, Caldwell-Stone refuses to state whether that diversity policy includes ex-gay books,” PFOX executive director Regina Griggs said in a Tuesday statement.
"Books about leaving homosexuality are censored in most high school libraries, although gay affirming books for youth are readily available,” she continued.