Speaking out about freedom

The setting was divine: a duplex on the Upper East Side. The featured speaker: Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. The subjects: sex, violence and profanity. In other words, the stuff that books are banned for.

Some 50 publishers, writers and other 1st Amendment supporters gathered Wednesday night to launch the Free Speech Leadership Council, an advocacy arm of the National Coalition Against Censorship, a nonprofit founded in 1974.

Morrison, 78, has long experience with censorship. Her novels “Beloved,” “Song of Solomon” and “The Bluest Eye” have frequently been threatened with removal from library shelves -- and sometimes pulled -- because of sexual, racial or violent content.

The problem, she said, is fear -- fear of information, dating back to the book of Genesis and the temptation of the Tree of Knowledge. “Knowledge is bad” is the Bible’s message, Morrison said, while being interviewed by author Fran Lebowitz. “It is sinful. It will corrupt you and you will die.”