The American Taliban strikes again!

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS news correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters. "I don't look at it as censorship," says state representative Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."

Sorry Gerald. Everyone else with a brain sees it as censorship. It's very simple. If you make something unavailable to me because you don't agree with it, that's censorship.

Just to give you an idea, here is a short list of those whose works and stories would be excluded from Alabama school libraries:

Socrates (469-399 BC) Greek philosopher Practiced educational method using analytical cross-examination, emphasizing self-knowledge and rejection of received opinion. Dialogues with his pupils recorded by Plato. Sentenced to death for "corrupting" the youth of Athens.

Plato (c.427-347 BC) Greek philosopher Key figure in Western philosophy, founder of the Academy in Athens, pupil of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. Dialogues The Symposium and Phaedrus celebrated the spiritual love of youths, but tolerated backsliding. Love poems to Aster.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) King of MacedonConquered most of Greece, Persia, Asia Minor, India & Egypt (founded the city of Alexandria), transmitted Hellenic values across the civilized world. Mourned the death of his lover Hephaestian with extravagant funeral rites.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian painter, scientist, inventor Renaissance "universal genius", studied art, anatomy, aeronautics, architecture, engineering, hydro-dynamics. Mona Lisa and The Last Supper have come to symbolize the essence of art. Imprisoned for sodomy.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) British lawyer, scientist, philosopherKing's Counsel and Lord Chancellor under James I. Advocated empirical science in The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis. Wrote pithy and penetrating Essays; "Of Friendship" celebrates male love.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) Italian painter His style of dramatic realism had a wide impact on European painting. Voluptuous homoerotic figures, incl. saints modeled on his boyfriends. A hot-tempered man, often involved in street violence.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet Lived a very private life, secretly writing more than a thousand poems, charcterized by lyrical intensity and paradoxes. Intimate relationship with Susan Gilbert Dickinson, to whom she wrote many passionate love letters.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish playwright, poet, critic Aesthete, witty conversationalist, used subversive paradoxes in his plays (The Importance of Being Earnest). Imprisoned after losing libel case against father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas for calling him a sodomite.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) British novelist, essayist Archetypal Bloomsbury Modernist (To the Lighthouse, 1927). Feminist advocate (A Room of One's Own, 1929). Androgynous heroine of Orlando (1928) is modeled on her lover Vita Sackvile-West. Motto: "Women alone stir my imagination."

Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973) British actor, singer/songwriter, playwright Plays with satirical dialogue (Hay Fever 1925, Private Lives 1930), revues with memorable songs ("Mad Dogs and Englishmen" 1932) mocking pseudo-sophistication. Frivolous cabaret entertainer in the 1950s.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) American playwright New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for The Glass Menagerie (1945), Pulitzer Prize for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). Gay themes in Suddenly Last Summer (1958) and Night of the Iguana (1961).

Truman Capote (1924-1984) American writer Gay Southern Gothic (Other Voices, Other Rooms), portrait of a playgirl (Breakfast at Tiffany's), invented "non-fiction novel" (In Cold Blood). Books became successful films. Became a celebrity, petted then dumped by socialites.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) African-American novelist, writer Brought up in Harlem, lived mainly in Paris. Autobiographical gay novels Giovanni's Room, Another Country. Campaigned for black civil rights in USA (The Fire Next Time). Exemplifies revolutionary spirit of the 1960s.

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) American poet, activist The Beat Generation, with Jack Kerouac & William Burroughs. Major notoriety with Howl (1955), defiantly gay. Anti-establishment speaker at universities 1960s-1970s. Poet of drugs, Buddhism & gay liberation. Many literary awards.

Andy Warhol (c.1928-1987) American pop artist, filmmaker Pioneer of pop art (Campbell's Soup Cans), silk-screen portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Mao Zedong. Underground films from his "factory" with Paul Morrissey, mostly gay, starring Joe Dallesandro (Flesh, Trash).

Mind you this is a short list compiled from a much longer list found here. They may as well plan to remove about half of the literary works from their libraries.

Nevermind the kids being exposed to literature of and by gay people. I wouldn't want my kids to be exposed to Gerald Allen!