Last week, we learned that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin expressed an abstract interest in library censorship while she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and then found two books that bothered her local church. In a lengthy article about her use of political power for personal favors and vendettas, the NY Times stumbles onto a book that drew Palin’s specific ire, with two sources to back up the claim:
“In 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book Daddy’s Roommate on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to [former campaign manager Laura Chase] and [former Wasilla mayor John Stein]. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it. ‘Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,’ Ms. Chase said. ‘It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.'”
Stein also told the Times that “social conservatives” in town were raising objections about other books back then, and books would sometimes be checked out of the library and returned in a defaced or multilated condition.
By the way, if you see a pattern emerging from the majority of the books Palin and her allies are now known to have wanted to ban—Daddy’s Roommate and Pastor, I Am Gay—you aren’t the only one. Anyone want to give odds for a Heather Has Two Mommies revelation between now and Friday?