The Federal Court in Virginia recently held that the Loudon County Public Libraries did not have to put blocking programs in their computers that have Internet access.

The experts that spoke on behalf of blocking said that it was not censorship, it was protection of children against on-line predators and pornography. This same library doesn’t carry pornography in book form, as a matter of course. And by not purchasing every book available they are not deemed to be censoring.  The Judge decided that the first amendment and the license of free speech should prevail.

At the same time this is occurring, the well-known southern song of Dixie is being banned from Southern schools because it is determined to be too inflammatory… too insensitive.

It seems as though those southern schools either need to become more open-minded like the librarians in Loudon county, or the librarians need to take the same sensitivity training the southern schools take.

But in any case, there needs to be a consistent interpretation of the First Amendment across the nation or it will become irrelevant.