That was but a prologue

Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menchen.

(That was but a prologue, there where books are burnt, ultimately people are burnt.)

-- Heinrich Heine, Almansor

I bring the much-quoted old bon mot up in the context of this article:

MONTGOMERY--An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries...

"...Our culture, how we know it today, is under attack from every angle," Allen said in a press conference Tuesday.

Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.

"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

-- "Gay book ban goal of state lawmaker", The Birmingham News

Reading this guy just fills me with thoughts of Heine--and, in particular, this rather lucid, even lyrical description:

...false revolutionaries who bawled much about love and faith but whose love was nothing but hate of everything foreign, whose faith consisted of nothing but unreason, and whose ignorance knew nothing better than to invent the burning of books...

-- Heinrich Heine, Religion and Philosophy in Germany

Heine would have, I think, sadly recognized much from our times.