Using the award-winning graphic novel Skim as ammunition, a conservative columnist has launched a preemptive strike against the American Library Association's 2010 Youth Media Awards.

In a post at Newsbusters, a website devoted to "Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias," Carolyn Plocher pursues the bugaboo of the ALA's "not-so-hidden gay agenda," and tells parents to look forward to "dozens of books with themes about 'coming out,' pedophilia, trans-gender issues, and sodomy laws."

As an example of what we may expect from the Youth Media Awards, Plocher turns to Skim, the 2008 graphic novel by cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki about a 16-year-old Wiccan at an all-girls school who falls for her (female) drama teacher. Mariko Tamaki has described Skim as "a gothic Lolita lesbian story" told from the perspective of the Lolita.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Plocher describes the book differently, if with more detail: "The protagonist of the graphic novel, Kim Cameron -- nicknamed Skim because she's not slim -- participates in séances, channels the spirits, swears judiciously, discusses porn and handjobs, and skips class to smoke. The major plot of the story revolves around Skim's relationship with her flaky drama teacher, Ms. Archer. When Ms. Archer catches Skim skipping class and smoking a cigarette, she sits down for a drag herself, which eventually leads to a romantic relationship depicted in a double-page tableau of the two kissing in the woods."

A double-page tableau! Of kissing! How ... scandalous?

But you see, it's all part of the ALA's devious plot to use highfalutin terms like "authentic literature" and "literary merit" to take up the twin causes of "normalizing homosexuality and advancing the gay agenda."

"The ALA claims that 'authentic literature' like Skim more accurately portrays the gritty, real American life, and therefore, has more literary merit," Plocher writes. "It's a manipulative tactic that has effectively stocked library shelves across the nation with pro-homosexual books that inevitably fall into children's hands."

If you've fully recovered from your shock by Jan. 18, you can follow the ALA Youth Media Awards via live webcast here.