Little Sisters Continues to Fight the Good Fight

Since it's inception, Little Sister's Gay and Lesbian bookstore has been at the frontlines, taking on censorship issues for the last 20 years. The struggle has mostly been over gay erotica and banned books, but there is a famous instance of Little Red Riding Hood (yes, the kids' book) being held at the border over a misunderstanding of content. The documentary "Little Sister's vs. Big Brother" chronicles the years of legal battles.

But it looks like the fight is getting too big for the resources available to the small but spunky store. Now Little Sister's is asking the Supreme Court for financial help to pay for the legal fees it has incurred. Clearly, taking on the goverment is a expensive task. Bureaucrats have a well-deserved reputation for red tape and a long drawn out court battle would be more than enough to do in an independant bookstore.

The store has had some success in the past, when the courts ruled that customs had to change the way they censored materials, but they didn't stop there and it is sad to see that money is detaining them when passion did not.

A recent article in the Vancouver Sun states that, "A lower-court judge in British Columbia ruled that the case was important enough to deserve federal financial aid, but the provincial court of appeal decided otherwise last year." Hopefully they will get it because they have been working so hard and I don't know that anyone will pick up the fight if they can't. No one likes censorship.