People are ridiculous. If you don't like parts of the summer reading programs your library is offering, don't allow your kids to attend them. Sure, make sure your "children [are] being taught the right things", but quit trying to raise everyone else's children. Besides, based on this list of possible ideas for the nationwide summer reading program, I'd say only a fraction of it could be seen as objectionable anyway. Do you really need to threaten to picket over that?
Besides, huge objections over tarot cards and horoscope readings? What teen (or actually, pre-teen - I would argue kids find out about this stuff much earlier) doesn't mess with a Ouija board, try to put their friends into trances, pretend to read tarot cards, or stare into a mirror to summon Bloody Mary at some point? I was raised by pretty strict Presbyterian parents, and I managed to do 3 of the 4 things in the previous sentence (those Ouija boards, they are elusive), and more that I can't remember, all by 3rd grade! So even children in religious families experiment with that stuff. What you should be more concerned about is whether or not you've done a good job raising your teens to know the difference between nonsense and reality.
I completely agree with Media Specialist Christina Connell when she says the library is “sending the wrong message to teens, who will feel that they are not important enough to fight for, and to the church groups, who will only be empowered to launch further crusades against books.”
2 comments:
I do not have any religious objections to Tarot reading myself, but as a player of Tarot card games, I object to what appear to be one-sided presentations of Tarot cards only in terms of divination usage.
Tarot cards according to playing card historians were not originally designed for fortune telling. They were created for playing a type of card game.
I think that taxpayer funded institutions such as public libraries and public schools which are designed to educate the public should give equal time to the game playing aspects of Tarot. Teens should be aware that Tarot cards are not just used for the occult or divination. We should teach teenagers the rules for Tarot card games which are still played today in continental Europe. The young people might even enjoy playing card games more than practicing divination. We should educate young people about all aspects of culture including Tarot and not present one sided views of these matters. We are doing young people a disservice when we neglect to inform them that Tarot cards have a broader cultural signifigance than their uses in the occult.
I do not wish for these Tarot presentations to be banned or cancelled but I do think they should be more balanced by including some information regarding Tarot's role in the history of card games.
That is exactly why I boycott church!!
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