Book tales

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By Christine Anne Piesyk | April 9, 2007 |

I picked up the Easter Sunday edition of the Leaf Chronicle for a reason: a story about a friend and a friend’s newly published book that was supposed to appear that day. I found articles on two other book/authors, but not what I was looking for. Seems that in the hours before the presses rolled, it suddenly became too controversial for an Easter edition in a southern Christian community. This liberal Yankee activist was disgusted.

But there are two sides to the story. And a beginning. And the beginning is this: Clarksville’s David Shelton wrote a book, a groundbreaking book called Rainbow Kingdom: Christianity and the Homosexual Reconciled. The Leaf Chronicle assigned a reporter to do a story on David and his book. It was slated to run on Holy Saturday, then shifted to Easter Sunday, and then without warning pulled from Sunday’s paper leaving the unpleasant inference that this holiest of days and reconciliation of gays within any traditional church is not something the Christian base in our community wants to read, see, or know about. So much for true Christian love and understanding.

My personal take is that it would have been groundbreaking journalism for the Chronicle to run with this, and not bury it inside the paper. Were I still a managing editor or editor-in-chief up north, it would have run in my paper on Sunday — as a front page feature. Boxed. Above the fold. Let people read it and talk, discuss, even argue constructively about it, and maybe learn something.

David is okay with the shift in publication date, and actually feels that he’ll get a more attentive reading on Tuesday (the next official publication date) and his story won’t be buried in a Sunday/holiday paper with a thin “living” section. He may well be right. He wrote the book with bridging gaps in mind; he wrote it as a “reconciliatory piece,” a tool to promote understanding, discussion of vital issues, and as means of supporting unification and healing. He has a valid point. He also had mixed feelings about the shift in publication dates, especially when he got up Sunday morning to read his story and it wasn’t there.

Publishing it Sunday would likely have sparked controversy here, but Clarksville needs a bit of controversy to shake up the often stagnant mindset that segregates whole segments of the community into a Christian base and a pool of “oh my God they’re gay/lesbian etc … where did they come from … ” or “good heavens, she’s a liberal yankee radical… how did she ever get in here …”

Clarksville needs a bit of controversy to counteract the often bland story lines that rarely rock the boat. A good newspaper tackles the difficult and controversial stories, makes sense of them, and doesn’t bury them to appease or placate the voices of opposition. America was founded on opposition, on challenging the powers that be, and of letting voices be heard. All voices. Nothing turns up the volume more than an effort to downplay or suppress.

David, who has been traveling around the south promoting his book, will get his day in the Chronicle, and he is happy. I am happy that they will run his story and present his message. I do think that running it on Sunday would have been a powerful message on true Christian spirit, love and acceptance of diversity.