This was long before the widespread recognition of xianity. After 313 CE when the Roman Emperor Constantine decreed toleration for xianity, organized persecution of free thought began. In 325, the council of Nicaea condemned a book by Arius that denied the divinity of the nazarene. Eight years later, Constantine ordered the burning of all books written by Arius under penalty of death for non-compliance.

In 391 the Emperor Theodosius I had all of the great classical libraries of Alexandria destroyed and burned. This pattern continued on for centuries until 1233 when Pope Gregory IX founded the Inquisition which resulted in the burning of authors along with their books. Heinous torture and the stake were considered fitting ends for "heretics" such as Savonarola, whose chief crime was to expose the political scandals of the papal court.

The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century immediately fell under the total control of the xtian church. In 1487 a papal bull (a church order coming from the pope) ordered that all manuscripts be subjected to prior examination by church authority which would officially approve or deny their publication. The secular governments supported this censorship by imposing penalties under civil law.

The coming of the Reformation divided the church and undermined their absolute control. A book that was banned in one place was likely to be published in another area and most often, all the churches could do was to get it banned locally after publication. Under the reign of Pope Paul IV, in 1557, the first listing of forbidden books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) was issued. This list comprised all of the books that Roman Catholics were forbidden to read because of their immorality or their contradiction of church doctrines. Subsequently, for the next 400 years, numerous editions of the Index of forbidden books were issued. The last was in 1948 which comprised more than 4,000 forbidden titles, including all of the writings of Emile Zola, Andre Gide, Anatole France, many works of Descartes, the Dumas’ both father and son, Voltaire, Balzac, “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Gibbons, “Social contract” by Rousseau, “Critique of Pure Reason” by Kant “Madame Bovary” by Flaubert, “Les Miserables” by Hugo and many other world classics.

The Vatican did not cease in its efforts of censorship or discontinue the Index of Forbidden Books until 1966. The volume of published materials eventually made it impossible for complete inspection of written materials. The Vatican's weekly “L’Osservatore della Domenica" issue of May 1966 stated the Curia was ceasing publication of the index because the sheer volume of published materials in today’s world made the task of censorship, reviewing and compiling a list of forbidden books impossible. The responsibility for censorship passed from the Vatican to the several national conferences of bishops.

The Protestants were just as bad as the Catholics. The first American Press was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639. Nearly all of the output was of a religious nature. Nearly all of the publications were strictly Calvinistic, mostly sermons and theological writings, even poetry and non-fiction conformed to religious orthodoxy. The book “The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption” by William Pynchon somehow slipped through the censors and became the first book to be publicly burned in the United States, year 1650. The author soon fled the country.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, all 13 colonies made blasphemy, profanity and obscenity statutory crimes. In addition, the Puritan environment continued to exercise complete control. To avoid being ostracized or the target of harsh criticism from the public or powerful pressure groups, authors did not dare write anything that might be offensive to the church. All kinds of extralegal pressures can enforce conformity.

Before the Civil War, there were very few prosecutions for obscenity because of the prevalence of Puritan standards and widespread control which indirectly enforced the self censorship of authors. The first known “obscenity case” in the United States centered around the novel “Fanny Hill” which was banned in 1821 in Massachusetts. The U.S. congress passed a law in 1842 forbidding the “importation of all indecent and obscene prints, paintings, lithographs, engravings and transparencies.” In 1865, it passed its first law making the mailing of obscene material a criminal offense.

Anthony Comstock then appeared on the scene and became one of the most infamous names in the history of censorship. Hence the name “Comstockery,” the puritanical tracking down of vice and immorality in printed materials. As head of a YMCA vigilante committee, he composed New York State’s first obscenity law and the YMCA coerced its passage in 1868. In the year 1873, the committee was transformed into the “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice” In that year, this organization aggressively pressured congress into passing an anti-vice law authored by Comstock. The law enforced the ban from mails of any “obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print or other publication of indecent character” and any advertising for such materials and established a penalty of a $5,000.00 fine and/or 5 years imprisonment. This “Comstock” law easily passed through congress without debate. “Little Comstock laws” were additionally enacted by a number of state legislatures.

In New York, Comstock’s YMCA organization was given legal power in the form of warrants to search and seize materials suspected of obscenity. Even though this was a private religious group unanswerable to the electorate, it dictated New York arrests and convictions. In its first 73 years, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice confiscated 397,000 books and secured the arrest of 5,567 defendants. This organization encouraged the formation of the “New England Watch and Ward Society” in Boston. This group effectively intimidated and put private pressure on New England booksellers to refuse to sell any materials condemned by the society.
Titles condemned by the society included “Dark Laughter” by Sherwood Anderson, “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemmingway, “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser, “Elmer Gantry” by Sinclair Lewis (condemned as much for its anti-religious theme as for its supposed obscenity), “Manhattan Transfer” by John Dos Passos’ and Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” was also banned in Boston, even though the American edition had been expurgated, missing two “obscene” passages included in the European version.

Although these and other similar Protestant societies played a major role in the ant-obscenity campaigns for several more years, their influences began to weaken in the 1920’s and 1930’s. After WWI, things began to change and America entered into a revolution in standards regarding human sexuality and other matters of morality that continues to this day. Protestant fanatics who continued to carry on these traditions were subject to public ridicule and indifference.

1950’s- enter the Roman Catholic run “National Organization of Decent Literature” or “NODL.” Founded in 1938 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States and subsequently sponsored and run by the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women in Chicago, NODL declared its purpose to be “to organize and set in motion the moral forces of the entire country…against the lascivious type of literature which threatens the moral, social and National life of our country.” It sought to rid stores of any literature it deemed objectionable by any means possible. It proceeded to compile weekly of titles of books and magazines it blacklisted (as well as approved publications). These lists were included in the national Catholic weekly “Our Visitor.” Beginning in 1956, the NODL had its own newsletter.
Eventually, it worked out an organized system of boycotts and pressures against non-complying book and magazine sellers and distributors. Intense pressure was brought on in heavily Catholic cities and counties, which resulted in numerous raids and arrests. In the 1950’s NODL became the most formidable anti-obscenity pressure group in the United States. NODL action representatives would make the rounds to local merchants and ask them to clear their shelves of NODL blacklisted materials and return them to the distributor. Those who refused were subjected to more frequent visits and open demonstrations and protests. If the merchant agreed, he was awarded a certificate, renewable monthly. Parish newsletters and/or sermons from the pulpit then urged Catholics to shop only at stores displaying the certificate in their windows. In 1957, the Executive Secretary of NODL, Monsignor Thomas J. Fitzgerald, bragged that the NODL lists were also “implemented by other organizations such as the PTA’s, American Legion Posts, women’s clubs, Junior Chambers of Commerce” and that “some organizations applying NODL procedures have been organized by public officials.” NODL also placed its lists in the hands of wholesalers. The NODL ceased publication of its newsletter in December of 1969 and thereafter disappeared.

Enter “Morality in Media”. Local chapters were established in many American cities. The main agenda of Morality in Media has been to assist in court battles and in legislative enactment of new anti-obscenity laws on the state and municipal levels. In 1973, the Justice Department Law Enforcement Assistant Administration set up a so called “National Legal Data Center” on the law of obscenity on the campus of California Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, California. The group received an initial grant of $137, 625.00 in federal funds and a prospect of 200,000 more and has received assistance from Morality in Media- all for the purpose or abetting prosecutors and legislators across the country in a crackdown on allegedly obscene literature and films. The 1970’s were dubbed as the era of “The New Censorship” by booksellers. The supreme court turned over the power of censorship to the local government and the sectarian moralists such as in the bible belt were given much more authority.

Organizations have come and gone throughout the years. The names and the faces change, but they are still the same people. They work relentlessly to coerce their beliefs upon others and when that proves ineffective, they do everything they can to see that society legally conforms to their standards. Every xtian organization from the church to the website pressures for donations. They control through money and influence. I am currently writing an article on the extent of their wealth and power. Remember- this affects all of us directly. They have a direct impact and always have on why we are unable to publicly practice our religion without discrimination. The only time this will change is when people get real serious about standing up for their rights and legally fighting back.

References:

”Freedom Under Siege,
The Impact of Organized Religion on Your Liberty and Your Pocketbook ”
by Madalyn Murray O’Hair
Chapter on “Speak No Evil, See No Evil, Hear No Evil” ©1974

On-line links for more information. Nearly all censorship organizations are controlled and run by xtians:

A History of Censorship dating back to 585 BCE

AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION
Promotes the "agenda" through court actions; also targets media/entertainment industry. Concerns include homosexuality, pornography, profanity, "anti-Christian bigotry," liberal media. Influential on National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding and public school curricula censorship. 600,000 members, 640 local chapters. (Head: Donald Wildmon)
Now here is more- can you imagine a full grown male saying the "F" word because he can't say the word "FUCK"?? Here is the pathetic Link.
This Linkon their site is a real eye opener for how they operate and pressure merchants.

Xtian Censorship in Music