I'll fight to overturn US ban on my 'Queer Bible', says British author
Source: The Observer
I’ll fight to overturn US ban on my ‘Queer Bible’, says British author
Former model Jack Guinness caught up in furore over Mississippi mayor’s attempt to withhold funding for library until ‘homosexual materials’ are withdrawn
Alice Fisher
Sun 13 Feb 2022 06.30 GMT
A British writer, presenter and former model says he is shocked to find himself at the centre of an unprecedented wave of book banning in the US.
A Mississippi mayor has told the Madison County Library to remove LGBTQ+ books from its shelves or lose funding. One of the books singled out as an example was The Queer Bible, a collection of LGBTQ+ history essays edited by Jack Guinness. Ridgeland’s Republican mayor, Gene McGee, has refused to release funds to the library until “homosexual materials” are withdrawn.
Tonja Johnson, executive director of the Madison County Library System, said when she told McGee that the library served the whole community, he replied that he only served “the great Lord above”
Guinness discovered his anthology had been caught up in the book ban on Twitter. “I couldn’t quite believe my eyes,” he told the Observer. “When you write a book, you kind of imagine people might read it, but you don’t imagine anyone will ban it. Referring to it as ‘homosexual material’ – that’s the sort of phrase my grandmother would have used to talk about my jeans.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/13/ill-fight-to-overturn-us-ban-on-my-queer-bible-says-jack-guinness-british-author