Books and tolerance

Here's an interesting article (from a poker blog, of all places) about how banning books leads to intolerance.

If this lady doesn't want her kid to read (a book with homosexual themes), fine. That is her right as a parent. But to take that option away from all the other parents in the area is just stupid ... Books are ideas, and the more ideas that our young people are kept hidden away from, the more likely they are to be blindsided by these ideas when they get out in the Big Bad World.

It's not necessarily a groundbreaking observation, but it is one that can use repeating.

What makes it doubly interesting to me is the blogger's personal story about how reading Alpha Flight helped him deal with a friend's coming out as gay. As poorly as Marvel's handled Northstar at times (though there have been others when he was handled very well), including a gay character at all in their comics was a benefit. I'm not saying that they should pat themselves on the back or rest easy and think that their work is done, but I do like that even a pulpy adventure comic can have that profound an impact on someone's life.