McCoskrie contended that the book's sexually explicit content and coarse language made it unsuitable for teenagers. Mathiesen, an active Christian, agreed - hence the ban.
According to news reports, Mathiesen, who says it is irrelevant, is not just active in Christian circles but is editor of a book, Faith At Work, whose thesis discussing the "relevance of Christianity in the workplace" says: "Faith goes beyond the church on Sunday. It must impact on every area of life."
The complaint of McCoskrie about Into the River and its subsequent banning by Mathieson hinge on language.
It is, therefore, totally fair to examine the language of these two, the claimant and the man who endorsed his complaint by banning the book.
McCoskrie comes at this book as a matter of religious adherence and his intent is to hide from children under 14 years old the facts and language of sexuality. He says: "It has sexually explicit material and it's a book that's got the c-word nine times, the f-word 17 times and s-h-i-t 16 times."
Mathiesen has his own trouble with language. Regarding his own functioning, he says: "I can't comment on the merits of the book. It may have considerable merit and the board will decide whether it has or not. But the question is not how good of a bit of literature it is, but how does the Act apply to it?"
This disingenuous claim would ignore not only the aesthetic and artistic issues involved, but the moral dimension of a step so precipitate and dangerous as a book banning.
Mathiesen says it is wrong to refer to his decision as a "ban".
"It's an interim restriction. Banning is an emotive word."
It is exactly the scatological language which McCoskrie objects to that is necessary to the adolescent experience the book depicts.
Which is the greater obscenity - the attempt in literature to create an accurate depiction of the adolescent world with its struggles and its rebellious language, or the over-delicate sounding-out by McCoskrie of each letter of the word "shit"?
Or worse, I believe - the obfuscation of reality when a legalistic nicety, "interim restriction", is preferred to the honest "banning".
I do not doubt the sincerity of the religious beliefs of McCoskrie and Mathiesen, but I object to their use of government to impose those beliefs on us.
In particular, Mathiesen's dissembling regarding his bias in favour of a Christian outlook in application, as well as his attempt to disown the gravity of his overreach, preferring to call his ban "interim restriction", leads to the conclusion that it is his own moral compass which needs examination. Mathiesen should resign his position in the interest of the public good. Having damaged the country's reputation for fairness and open-mindedness, he needs to go.
Meantime, his strict literal interpretation of the law that empowers a person like himself, unilaterally, to ban a book with his willing exclusion of context and of artistic merit means the law itself must be changed. No single person should be permitted to make all of us a laughing stock - or worse.
Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
