# 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:** 35
**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 12, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/683 "2021-03-12T00:15:30Z")
Quotas and lesser standards aren’t equality. ---
**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 12, 2021, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/684 "2021-03-12T00:19:06Z")
Right. The selection criteria is not a single variable for the tallest in basketball because to win at basketball you need a variety of skills. However, no professional basketball team that I’m aware of selects based upon so-called skin color or ethnic diversity. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/685 "2021-03-12T00:27:16Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > The selection criteria is not a single variable for the tallest in basketball because to win at basketball you need a variety of skills. However, no professional basketball team that I’m aware of selects based upon so-called skin color or ethnic diversity. Sure, because a basketball team has only one very specific institutional goal: namely, to score more points in a basketball game than the team they’re playing against. If a college had the sole specific institutional goal of producing higher total scores on academic coursework than other colleges, then that college might well choose to admit applicants based only on which of them scored highest in academic achievements. But that’s generally not all that colleges are trying to do. ---
**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 12, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/686 "2021-03-12T00:28:43Z")
One can’t entirely blame Sam for being confused there, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the NY Post article was deliberately trying to confuse its readers, which is typical for the Post. Only in the fourth paragraph do they briefly acknowledge that these cutoffs are for determining who gets actively recruited and have nothing to do with the actual admissions process. Someone skimming could easily have missed that point and assumed the article was about admissions standards. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/687 "2021-03-12T00:37:04Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > One can’t entirely blame Sam for being confused there, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the NY Post article was deliberately trying to confuse its readers, which is typical for the Post. Only in the fourth paragraph do they briefly acknowledge that these cutoffs are for determining who gets actively recruited and have nothing to do with the actual admissions process. Yeah. Ironically, though, Sam returned to this thread in the first place because I queried his above reference to “under-represented Asian students” in a concurrent Pit thread about media bias, [in response to his declaration](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cnn-is-no-longer-journalism/937366/91) > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If you know the bias of the writers, you can read both sides and figure out foryourself where the truth lies, assuming both sides are spinning. Spotting “where the truth lies” is apparently not always all that easy! ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/688 "2021-03-12T01:16:35Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > “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. I’ve thought about this quite a lot over the last few days. I can see where you’re coming from, but I think that the example you’ve chosen to illustrate your position isn’t quite analogous enough to the problem I’m worried about to change my opinion. Before going into more detail, I’d just like to rephrase your argument in the form of a question. As I understand it, you’re asking _“Why is it unfair for crowds to object to bigotry from regular people, just because the consequences might be more severe for them than for someone rich and famous?”_ I think there are two reasons; the validity of the charge and the size of the crowd. Let’s first consider the validity of the charge. If a performer is blind drunk, there’s little he can offer by way of meaningful defense. His drunkenness is obvious and unmistakable. The same isn’t always true for cancellations of regular people on charges of racial bigotry, or any other kind of bigotry for that matter. There are lots of examples of people who have been targeted by online mobs for things which either (a) simply _aren’t_ racist, or (b) perhaps _are_ racist but weren’t considered so a few years ago. In the latter instance, the cancelled are guilty of nothing more than obliviousness, which shouldn’t carry stiff social penalties. In the former, the mob is simply being malicious and uncharitable, and their behavior can’t be condoned at all. In other words, if the drunken performer is analogous to someone who uses the n-word with abandon on social media, there are lots of recent “cancellations” which are more analogous to the performer being punished for having one drink before hitting the stage, or being punished because an audience member said they smelled whisky on their breath when really it was just bad cologne. Because regular people who end up being heavily punished for negligible infractions don’t generally tend to receive any publicity, the true dangers behind cancel culture can remain hidden. But let’s look at a harder case. Let’s imagine that someone posted a genuinely racially offensive joke on Twitter or something. This, I think, would be a situation more analogous to that of the drunken performer. However, I’d argue that a successful, concerted online cancellation would _still_ be disproportionate to the offense. Here, while the charge may be valid, this is where the size of the crowd needs to be taken into account. It’s the size of the crowd that can make cancellations in this situation disproportionate. Because we’re so interconnected these days, it doesn’t take much for cancellations to go viral and (as happened with Justine Sacco) for people who may have made a racially insensitive joke to find themselves being pilloried from all four corners of the Earth. This can be tremendously psychologically damaging, and certainly not proportionate to the offense. Needless to say, this damage is only compounded when the mob tracks down the offender’s employer and demands their dismissal. I understand the arguments _for_ cancelling someone in this situation. Bigotry shouldn’t be tolerated, and people have a right to know if the business they’re patronizing is using their money to support a bigot. But I don’t adhere to the currently _en vogue_ (and somewhat simplistic) belief that ‘bigotry is bigotry is bigotry’. There are layers, and while, for some species of bigotry, cancellation is an appropriate response, for others it can be disproportionate. For example, if someone is throwing the n-word around with abandon or using their Twitter account to promote Holocaust denial or something, they can’t really complain if they get cancelled. However, most successful cancellations of regular people are for lesser offenses. In cases where a person has told an insensitive joke, the mob doesn’t stop to ask itself _“Is this person a racist? Or have they just said something racist?”_ The mob just attacks. And it’s all the more insidious because, more often than not, it seems, the individual members of the mob are only considering their own actions in isolation. They’re not considering how their actions are being perceived by their target. In other words, they may think they’re throwing snowballs while the person being cancelled feels like they’re being hit by an avalanche. To bring this back to your initial analogy, imagine if the performer turned up drunk, but it was only an isolated event. It would be very unfair if a temperance union (if they still existed) used him as a poster-boy for alcoholism and demand that no-one ever book him again. This is more akin to the situation I see on social media when someone is successfully cancelled for doing something racially insensitive. There’s an example which illustrates the point quite well. A couple of years ago, a white woman turned up to a Halloween party in blackface, wearing a sticker that said “Hi. I’m Megyn Kelly”. This was only about a week after Kelly had asked why blackface was racist on TV. The woman’s intention was clearly to make fun of Kelly. Long story short, a couple of other guests (one black, one white) took offense and _two years later_ demanded she be dismissed. I don’t know why they waited so long, but they did. You can read more about it [**here**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/blackface-incident-at-washington-post-cartoonists-2018-halloween-party-resurfaces-amid-protests/2020/06/17/66f09bde-af2e-11ea-856d-5054296735e5_story.html). Now, did this woman do something racist? Absolutely. Is this woman an _actual_ racist? Almost certainly not, and I suspect this was probably obvious to the complainants. However, the consequences she faced were the same as if she had acted with racist intent. I think this is a good example of cancel culture leading to disproportionate consequences for someone who, while they undeniably acted in a racially insensitive manner, wasn’t a worthy target for this species of mob justice. It’s this kind of episode that troubles me, even in cases where the offender absolutely did something wrong. To reiterate, in cases involving genuine, unrepentant racists, I don’t think cancellation is disproportionate. However, in lesser cases it’s difficult to square the punishment meted out by the mob with the nature of the offense. Cancellation is a blunt force weapon. It’s a sledgehammer, useful for breaking rocks, but all too often I see it being employed to either hammer in thumbtacks or just commit vandalism. That’s why I worry about its ever increasing prevalence in society. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/689 "2021-03-12T01:17:16Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Can you provide a cite for the specific incident you’re talking about? I don’t disbelieve your description, but I can’t find any more detailed reporting (or any reporting at all) about it. No problem. Here’s a pretty good summary of what happened: > **[White woman accused of ‘cultural appropriation’ for opening bone broth stall](https://www.indy100.com/news/bone-broth-cultural-appropriation-b1765219)** > > A  Canadian athletic apparel store ended a partnership with a ‘holistic nutrition’ company that was accused of cultural appropriation for a bone broth bar and an ethnic food pop-up.The ‘Ripe Nutrition’ pop-up opened inside  the Toronto... ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/690 "2021-03-12T01:21:36Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Quotas and lesser standards aren’t equality. The judges did not find that when ruling in favor of Harvard and other colleges. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/691 "2021-03-12T01:24:12Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > One can’t entirely blame Sam for being confused there, because it seems pretty obvious to me that the NY Post article was deliberately trying to confuse its readers, which is typical for the Post. Only in the fourth paragraph do they briefly acknowledge that these cutoffs are for determining who gets actively recruited and have nothing to do with the actual admissions process. Someone skimming could easily have missed that point and assumed the article was about admissions standards. Yep, most of what the right depends nowadays as a source of information is misleading or uses bad faith. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/692 "2021-03-12T01:31:25Z")
I’d just like to quickly correct something here. In my previous post I said this was a family owned restaurant. However, on re-reading the article it transpires that it was actually a pop-up restaurant with a single owner. I don’t think that invalidates the example, but I didn’t want to misrepresent the events. ---
**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 12, 2021, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/693 "2021-03-12T01:41:14Z")
Walter, you seem like a thoughtful guy. I’m not clear, though, on exactly how you’re defining “cancellation”? Is it just having a lot of people being mean to you on the internet (not to minimize the very real psychological damage that could cause)? If so, how many rude comments do you need for it to count as a cancellation? Or do you actually have to lose something of value, like a job? I’m not trying to be snarky here, but you keep using that word and I’m honestly not sure what you mean by 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 12, 2021, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/694 "2021-03-12T01:54:02Z")
So what? Judges have political agenda just like anyone else. Are you a fan of Citizens United decision? ---
**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 12, 2021, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/695 "2021-03-12T01:54:54Z")
Argument by not knowing what words mean gambit! ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/696 "2021-03-12T01:55:25Z")
**Walter** Thanks for that post. It was very thoughtful. I recall listening to an interview with Jon Ronson on the Nerdist podcast, ironically I suppose, given what happened to Chris Hardwick. I have a lot of empathy for people that go through that especially when the consequences seem so disproportionate to the offense. This fits in with some older research I’m familiar with that we’ve seen a rise in retaliatory aggression in the US. This would have been 15 years ago, I think it’s off the charts now. And of course retaliatory aggression is tied to narcissism. > [@WalterBishop](#): > > The mob just attacks. And it’s all the more insidious because, more often than not, it seems, the individual members of the mob are only considering their own actions in isolation. They’re not considering how their actions are being perceived by their target. In other words, they may think they’re throwing snowballs while the person being cancelled feels like they’re being hit by an avalanche. It’s a lot to chew on, even with regard to my own actions. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/697 "2021-03-12T02:02:00Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > Because regular people who end up being heavily punished for negligible infractions don’t generally tend to receive any publicity, the true dangers behind cancel culture can remain hidden. ? While I agree that the majority of “regular people” in such a situation, like the majority of “regular people” in any situation, will not be picked up on the media radar, such stories in the media seem extremely common and well publicized. I don’t think the media is at any serious risk of underreporting the so-called “true dangers behind cancel culture” for “regular people”. ---
**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 12, 2021, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/698 "2021-03-12T02:05:31Z")
Surely you’ve seen the threads here advocating violence directed at a teen wearing a hat and a smile/smirk? Multiply that by millions of nuts online and you can clearly see that the instantaneous and global reach of modern media results in disproportionate and highly amplified ‘consequences’ to relatively harmless behavior. Some of this mob action is directed at folks based on novel ‘standards’ applied retroactively. It’s obviously a problem. Especially since it leads to real life violence. The only people who don’t think it’s a problem are those who don’t pay attention to current trends or those who wish to exploit mob violence for their own purposes. ---
**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 12, 2021, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/699 "2021-03-12T02:28:55Z")
HEAVE HO! Move that goalpost another 20 yards! ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/700 "2021-03-12T02:30:36Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > So what? Judges have political agenda just like anyone else. Are you a fan of Citizens United decision? No, and that is why one should fight to correct that. But remember, we know what was wrong with that, while you show that are incapable to see that the judges did see the evidence and the ones that claimed that racism was there did not present convincing evidence for that. Point being that it is not just a yahoo on the internet who is telling you that you are wrong, but the courts and the university press that looked at the case who are telling us that you remain a deluded mollusk. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/701 "2021-03-12T02:30:41Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Surely you’ve seen the threads here advocating violence directed at a teen wearing a hat and a smile/smirk? I have never seen a thread advocating violence here. The one possible exception I can recall was a debate over whether it’s okay to punch Nazis. There was also a side debate about doxxing which IIRC I was explicitly against (still am.) You’re preaching to the choir here. But I see a distinct difference between public shaming and the kind of stuff conservatives decry as “cancel culture.” Potato Head is not Justine Sacco. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2021, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271/702 "2021-03-12T02:41:39Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Why are you “embarrassed” about people issuing “beat downs” and “admonitions to go away” and curses in the Pit She’s not embarrassed, she just doesn’t like her fellow transphobe being called out[.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/1933) > [@J K Rowling and the trans furore](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/1933): > > But I can’t say I think the trans movement has my best interests as a woman in mind anymore. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271.md?page=34) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-christian-bookstores-allowed-to-ban-books/937271.md?page=36)