Libraries Ban Jon Stewart

Normally you wouldn’t think a story like the one below would inspire a lot of media coverage. Libraries ban books all the time for reasons much sillier than those described below. But since this case is about two libraries in a southern red state (and Wal-Mart) banning a book by a popular left-wing figure I can see where the liberal media would be intrigued. I can almost see the lefty readers sadly shaking their heads as they read this story and cursing the backwards population of “Jesusland.”
What media journalist isn’t interested in that?
But all that aside, this particular book ban is still pretty stupid.

GULFPORT, Miss. – Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart’s best-selling “America (The Book)” over the satirical textbook’s nude depictions of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.
“I’ve been a librarian for 40 years and this is the only book I’ve objected to so strongly that I wouldn’t allow it to circulate,” said Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System of eight libraries in Jackson and George counties.
“We’re not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public,” Willits said. “If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we’d have the book.”
Wal-Mart has declined to stock the book because of the page, which features the faces of the nine Supreme Court justices superimposed over naked bodies. The facing page has cutouts of the justices’ robes, complete with a caption asking readers to “restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe.”

School-yard humor aside, there’s no reason why this book shouldn’t be stocked in the library. I find it hard to believe that there aren’t other books already in these libraries with content either as or more offensive then the sketch in question. If the library were truly interested in protecting minors from offensive material then perhaps they should do what most libraries in the country have done: divide their books into “Children” and “Adult” sections and limit access to the adult section to children who are accompanied by an adult.
Update:
The ban has been reversed.
Update 2:
Oliver Willis:
Signs of Sanity In Reddest America
Because finding nude renditions of Supreme Court justices a little bit objectionable is, you know”insane.