Teen novel prompts first New Zealand book ban in decades

Fahrenheit 451

Banning things is becoming more and more prevalent, not just in Sunny NZ.

We must protect our children from the corruption of books, luckily the web is perfectly safe :P

Burning Bush, teenagers are not children and many come face to face with the mentioned situations no matter what dreamland some people think we all live in.

Teen issues are not going to disappear for pretending they are all 8 years old and treating them that way. Nor will those issues disappear for exercising Nazi tactics like book banning.

This is a country that banned the TV airing of Power Rangers because they deemed the show as too violent for children despite the fact that they were all too happy to allow foreign film crews to shoot new scenes and hire local teenage actors for this multi-series franchise within their country. It's might as well OK to assume that the kids in your country are 'more easily impressed' by violence and other stimulating themes, but here's what bothers me about this country the most:

NZ is a country where human rights and the constitution are not entrenched. Their parliament can simply abolish and amend any fundamental law in their country with a simple majority vote. I guess the Kiwis are exceptionally level headed people for allowing such an arrangement to exist between man and state in this day and age, when the only other developed country in the world with a similarly unrestrained government is Israel.

"Think of the children!"

George Carlin said it best: https://youtu.be/h6wOt2iXdc4

I didn't realize the Kiwis were joining the rest of the Anglosphere in it's march to idiocy.

Political correctness reaches far and wide. I'm tired of it!

@Burning Bush

morally they are

Men have led armies into battle at younger ages than 18. The Black Prince, for example, was 16 at the Battle of Crecy.

Baby boomers and other older folk are quick to complain about the immaturity and continued adolescent behavior of today's Millennial generation while simultaneously advocating laws to molly-coddle them more and more. Treat people like adults and they'll mature accordingly.

The author of this book should be up on child porn charges for writing such perverted material.

Did you read this book?

If no real kids were part of it, it's not actually child porn.

There is a vast difference between child pornography and a novel that depicts sex between teenagers within the story. The purpose of child pornography is singularly as a fetish form of sexualization of pubescent or pre-pubescent bodies engaged in sexual acts. The novel is a well received novel that has won awards for engaging with topics that are very current and very real.

Teenagers have sex. Teenagers take drugs. Teenagers do a hell of a lot more than what censors allow them to see.

The censor board was forced to make a rash decision due to complaints from a conservative group and they will investigate the veracity of the complaints in the coming month (apparently) and I for one hope that they reverse their decision because what the world needs more of is novels that engage with the things that teenagers may engage with and engage with them on a mature level.

Legally and morally they are.

Morally, its utterly contrived. Legally, its just plain wrong. Its really easy to be an anti-sex crusader, as seen with all those who have upped the age of consent countless times, and made laws against pornography, strip clubs and prostitution. But those who advocate reversing those laws when they are so obviously unfair and out of sync with reality will get one branded a pervert or worse. Larry Flynt took a bullet to the spine to fight this sort of censorship, that is how very sick the anti-sex crusader is.

Invent laws and morals as you go, it still won't change the fact nobody had a problem with the story about those teens Romeo and Juliet back in the days of the Renaissance. That is because people of that time understood the reality of being a teenager far more than certain people of today.