# Why are Christian Bookstores Allowed to Ban Books? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 5, 2021, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271 "2021-03-05T15:24:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/201 "2021-03-05T22:47:57Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > > [@k9bfriender](#): > > > > of course it exists. > > > > Just look at Colin Kaepernick. > > That’s an excellent example. Cancel culture is certainly not exclusive to the left. I was actually surprised to hear you say that, because in my experience people who use that term wouldn’t. Going back to your earlier question about the use of the term by Obama et al…it seems to me that the term has been hijacked by people who use it ONLY to complain that conservative views are being “cancelled”, as we have seen in this thread. Looking at the wiki page for the book you mentioned, it appears it dealt with a much broader array of cases including people being shamed for things like plagiarism and other non-political offenses. That is a worthwhile thing to talk about, but I think you need to find a new word for it. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/202 "2021-03-05T22:48:15Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > There are all sorts of ways to discuss different preferred definitions of contested terms without resorting to that kind of deliberate categorical insult. Like what? It’s like asking me to discuss religion without saying I don’t believe in god, because hearing that is terribly offensive to you. Which is it you object to, the idea or the language? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/203 "2021-03-05T22:50:10Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > To clarify (because I wouldn’t want you to think I was drawing any kind of equivalence), I wouldn’t trivialize the oppression of black people and women in past generations by calling it “cancellation” (I know that wasn’t your intent either, I just wanted to get that on the record). I agree. That’s not what I’m doing – I’m talking about the “canceling” that was separate from Jim Crow, slavery, abuse of women, etc. I’m talking about the fact that black people and women who spoke out were less likely to get book deals, public speaking, publishers, TV spots, etc. They were canceled, but wide society didn’t notice or care, because they were black or a woman. > [@](#): > > I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification. The problem with cancel culture (or, at least, the problem _I_ have with cancel culture) is that all too often the punishment meted out by the masses is grossly disproportionate to the perceived offense. > > Granted, it’s not always very easy to see this, because cancel culture is at its most visible when people try to cancel the uncancellable. For example, when J.K. Rowling tweeted something widely perceived as transphobic she received a great deal of criticism (some of it legitimate, some very much not), but she’s still writing successful books. She hasn’t been “cancelled” in any meaningful sense. For people whose only exposure to cancel culture is incidents like that, that it’s easy to assume that “cancellation” is just a big fuss over nothing. > > The trouble with this is that it’s a form of survivorship bias. The people who _are_ successfully cancelled are people who nobody, including those who are skeptical of cancel culture, have ever even heard of. They’re regular people with typically precarious jobs who are hugely vulnerable to the kind of intense, short-term pressure a motivated online mob can exert. > > The emblematic case is that of Justine Sacco. She had a small twitter account (about 100 followers), and she tweeted a racially insensitive joke before she boarded a long flight to South Africa. By the time she’d landed the tweet had been picked up by Gawker, gone viral, and she’d been fired. As I recall, it took at least a couple of years before she was able to find another job. > > The joke itself was definitely problematic, but the consequences Sacco suffered were in no way proportionate to the offense. While the joke was definitely racially insensitive, it was also intended to be self-deprecating. Her _intention_ was to poke fun at her own obliviousness and privilege. The trouble was she isn’t a comedian and she didn’t pull it off. But you could easily imagine a skilled “edgy” comedian (Sarah Silverman, for instance) telling a similar joke without consequence. > > It’s stuff like this that I find troublesome. I don’t get particularly agitated when the mob goes after the powerful, because they’re largely insulated from real consequences. I may disagree with the mob. I may think they’re being unnecessarily mean spirited and uncharitable. I may think that many of them are (to use a phrase I don’t particularly like) “virtue signalling”. But if the people they’re targeting are rich enough to just shrug it off then I’m not going to pretend that it matters too much in the great scheme of things. The trouble is, that’s only the most visible aspect of cancel culture, not the most harmful. > > In short, the nuance that I think you’re not fully taking into account is that cancel culture is frequently employed to great success against people who _don’t actually have any meaningful power_. These people then suffer extremely disproportionate consequences, often on the strength of a single thoughtless action or remark. A lot of people seem to have this idea that “cancellations” are always David vs. Goliath type battles between powerful individuals and individually powerless mobs, but this is a false perception. Often, the mob is Goliath, David is just some poor schlub who made a dumb joke, and Goliath ends up curb-stomping David and gets to walk away feeling good about himself. > > If you haven’t read it already, I’d highly recommend the book ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’ by Jon Ronson. He takes a deep dive into cancel culture as it applies to regular people. I found it very eye-opening. I read that Ronson book years ago, and it was good. It demonstrated that this tactic (boycotts, public shaming, etc.) can be used for ill, or just go too far sometimes. But this has always been the case. This is a useful tactic, and occasionally it’s used poorly or unfairly. This isn’t new. What’s new is that suddenly the powerful are noticing and concerned, because they are facing the same risks that everyone else has always faced. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/204 "2021-03-05T22:57:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > There’s legitimate debate to be had over how best to handle medical issues involved with transgender identity, true. > > And people who disapprove of transgender rights still have the same constitutional rights they always had to hold and express their opinions, which is naturally going to result in debate (if nothing worse) with people who disagree with them and are willing to engage with them. True, however the debate over transgender rights is a particularly messy one. I’ve observed a lot of bad faith on both sides (not here, particularly, but elsewhere online) and it’s not uncommon for someone who raises an objection to, say, the idea that pre-op trans-women convicted of violent crimes should be housed in women’s prison being treated the same way as genuine bigots who think transgender people are all mentally ill fetishists. This kind of bad faith argumentation can easily snowball into online campaigns to punish people who hold relatively timid objections to certain requests made by advocates of transgender rights. That’s why, to go back to **MrDibble’s** point earlier, I think we should be careful before deploying conversation-stopping terms like TERF because being too free with them makes it nigh on impossible to reasonably separate the legitimate issues people have from outright bigotry. > [@Kimstu](#): > > But I don’t think any legitimate purpose is served, from a human rights standpoint, by treating transgender identity as though its very existence is open to debate. I completely agree. My opinion (as very much a non-expert) is that gender identity is largely (perhaps not wholly, but definitely largely) performative. That is to say, someone assigned male at birth who has a deep inner conviction that they’re a woman deserves to be acknowledged as such. There may be areas where some kind of compromise might need to be made, but they’re few and far between and are exceptions, not the rule. > [@Kimstu](#): > > (I also think it’s inappropriate to pathologize the existence of transgender identity, but I’m assuming that when you referred so broadly to “treating transgenderism” in “patients”, what you meant to say was “treating gender dysphoria”, or some such.) Thanks for pointing that out. That’s exactly what I was trying to say. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/205 "2021-03-05T22:57:25Z")
Why don’t we have a like button? This guy gets it. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/206 "2021-03-05T22:57:36Z")
Sexually explicit is all the commentary? Hell, if someone posted a thread talking about the legs of a famous actress 120101 threads would sprout like mushrooms about muh sexism!!1!! Yet absolutely no critique of a song that uses so-called intrinsically sexist and racist terms. It’s ART!!! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/207 "2021-03-05T23:07:02Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > The emblematic case is that of Justine Sacco. She had a small twitter account (about 100 followers), and she tweeted a racially insensitive joke before she boarded a long flight to South Africa. By the time she’d landed the tweet had been picked up by Gawker, gone viral, and she’d been fired. As I recall, it took at least a couple of years before she was able to find another job. > > The joke itself was definitely problematic, but the consequences Sacco suffered were in no way proportionate to the offense. While the joke was definitely racially insensitive, it was also intended to be self-deprecating. Her _intention_ was to poke fun at her own obliviousness and privilege. […] > > It’s stuff like this that I find troublesome. I don’t get particularly agitated when the mob goes after the powerful, because they’re largely insulated from real consequences. I may disagree with the mob. […] But if the people they’re targeting are rich enough to just shrug it off then I’m not going to pretend that it matters too much in the great scheme of things. The trouble is, that’s only the most visible aspect of cancel culture, not the most harmful. > > In short, the nuance that I think you’re not fully taking into account is that cancel culture is frequently employed to great success against people who _don’t actually have any meaningful power_ . These people then suffer extremely disproportionate consequences, often on the strength of a single thoughtless action or remark. “Conservative Discovers That Poor and Powerless People Are Hit Harder By Negative Consequences of Stupid Thoughtless Behavior Than Wealthy and Powerful. News at 11.” Seriously, Walter, I’m not dissing your concern for the non-elites here, but surely you see that there’s something rather inconsistent about it. Anything stupid and thoughtless is likely to produce “extremely disproportionate consequences” for one of the “little people” compared to wealthy elites. To take another example, if a small-time entertainer shows up for a gig drunk and incapable and gets booed and complained about, he may very well lose his reputation and his livelihood and his show-business career. If a big star does the same thing and gets the same reaction from the audience, he’ll probably be able, as you say, to “just shrug it off” and have his career largely or entirely unaffected by it. Is that fair? Hell no. Is it the way of the world in a highly unequal capitalist society? Hell yes. Are you going to try to argue from that unfairness that audiences shouldn’t boo and complain about performers being drunk off their ass when they’re supposed to be giving a show? Somehow I doubt it. If somebody does something stupid and thoughtless—like getting blind drunk before a performance, or tweeting a racist joke visible worldwide on a social-media platform—then of course how badly they end up suffering for it is going to depend largely on how rich and powerful they are. Duh. Trying to make out that that’s intolerably unfair only in the case of the racist behavior is just blatant special pleading. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/208 "2021-03-05T23:09:04Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > The emblematic case is that of Justine Sacco. She had a small twitter account (about 100 followers), and she tweeted a racially insensitive joke before she boarded a long flight to South Africa. By the time she’d landed the tweet had been picked up by Gawker, gone viral, and she’d been fired. As I recall, it took at least a couple of years before she was able to find another job. I believe that the general conclusion here was that the fault was not with the viral objectors, though - it was with the overreaction by her _employers_. This is not emblematic of a problem with the so-called mob rule; this is a problem with bad judgement on the part of those who give more credence to a transient shitstorm than they should have. But let’s consider the theory that they weren’t overreacting and the populace really had turned against the woman…as was entirely their right. The before-they-got-whiny conservatives would have said that it’s the right of the consumer to choose what they like and where they shop. And if the consumers really _were_ going to boycott the company if they kept the woman employed, well, that’s an odd hill to die on but more power to them. And if the consumers really did that then the business would be justified in firing her. Of course modern conservatives are whiners who don’t think that people should be _allowed_ to stop approving of them and supporting them, no matter what they may say or do, but these people are clearly babies who shouldn’t be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/209 "2021-03-05T23:18:21Z")
Sacco basically got her old job back … FWIW: > **[Justine Sacco, the PR exec who was fired from IAC for her tweets, has landed...](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/19/16911074/justine-sacco-iac-match-group-return-tweet)** > > Sacco, who tweeted before she got on a plane, is back with Barry Diller’s company. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/210 "2021-03-05T23:32:07Z")
Context is a helluva drug. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/211 "2021-03-05T23:36:20Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Sexually explicit is all the commentary? Hell, if someone posted a thread talking about the legs of a famous actress 120101 threads would sprout like mushrooms about muh sexism!!1!! Good heavens, this is getting eerily reminiscent of trying to have a rational discussion with the departed Starving Artist. octopus, not only do you evidently not understand the difference between a children’s book and an adult pop song, you also don’t understand the difference between an S&M kinkster narrator character in an adult pop song and a participant in an online discussion forum with specific rules of discourse. Yes, octopus, as impossibly headsplody as you may find the fact, it is indeed true that a songwriter can get away with saying way more sexually explicit and dirty stuff in a raunchy pop song with a sexually insatiable and transgressive narrator bragging about her “wet-ass pussy” than you can get away with saying in SDMB discussions. That’s not about “wokeness”, it’s about context. If Cardi B joined the SDMB and posted a thread talking about the legs of a famous actress, people would be complaining about the sexism of that too. Conversely, if you want to go write a raunchy pop song off-boards with a narrator bragging about how sexually indefatigable and kinky he is and how all the women throw money at him for his [anatomical specifications], none of us here will mind in the least. Maybe it would be a nice hobby for you, in fact. > [@Miller](#): > > Context is a helluva drug. Ain’t that the truth. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/212 "2021-03-05T23:38:03Z")
Context is a helluva drug. So is inconsistency when it’s ideologically convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/213 "2021-03-05T23:39:15Z")
AKA: " I don’t wanna talk about context because that spoils my idiotic narrative that plays in my head" ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/214 "2021-03-05T23:41:47Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Amazon is not the marketplace of ideas, they are a retailer. Unless you think that Random House should be required to publish my book, then you really can’t assert that Amazon has to carry it. Exactly. Amazon has torpedoed the old-style author-publisher-bookstore way of doing business, and as a result it’s taking on water fast. It used to be that the publishers sat in the captain’s chair and dictated in both directions, but not anymore- authors _can_ go straight to Amazon if they want to deal with their conditions, or they can go through publishers, who may or may not have the power they once had. It’s similar to what has already happened with music artists, record labels and streaming music, at least from where I sit. Except that we have this weird idea in this thread that the retailer has some sort of obligation to sell anything that’s published simply because they’re a huge retailer of books. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/215 "2021-03-05T23:43:23Z")
Should Apple be able to censor your communications when you use their OS? ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/216 "2021-03-05T23:44:33Z")
**You all** aren’t living up to the standards that **I** set for you. You’re refusing to align **yourself** to **my** definitions; therefore, you are guilty of endless rank hypocrisy. –Octopus The cognitive rigidity is strong with this one … > [@octopus](#): > > Should Apple be able to censor your communications when you use their OS? Whoops. Right back off the rails. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/217 "2021-03-05T23:46:26Z")
How is that different than Amazon controlling what’s on their cloud services? You can’t answer that can you? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/218 "2021-03-05T23:47:51Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Should Apple be able to censor your communications when you use their OS? Did you mean, when you use their messaging software? Yes, they should be able to censor you. I’ve been on messaging systems where they DO censor you, you f\*\*\*er. Don’t like it? Get different messaging software. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/219 "2021-03-05T23:49:14Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How is that different than Amazon controlling what’s on their cloud services? You can’t answer that can you? Amazon chooses content and offerings all day long. If they take a violent video game out of their app store (things like this happen all the time), that’s a much better analogy. The Department of Transportation reports that the train derailed for no apparent reason, and that – because it was full of natural gas – the implosion [sic] could be seen for miles. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/220 "2021-03-05T23:50:24Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Did you mean, when you use their messaging software? I think he meant when you use their OS. Like an iPhone, you know? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271.md?page=12)