Millions of college students are heading back to school, but some incoming freshman at Duke University are balking at their summer reading list: Several members of the class of 2019 say they declined to read Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home, because its sexual content and homosexual themes conflicts with their religious beliefs.

One student, Brian Grasso, posted on Facebook last month that he would read Fun Home, the basis for a Tony-winning musical now on Broadway, “because of the graphic visual depictions of sexuality.”

He added, “I feel as if I would have to compromise my personal Christian moral beliefs to read it.”

Fun Home was not required reading for class, but rather placed on the school's summer reading list, which is optional. The autobiographical graphic novel tells the story of Bechdel's childhood in her family's funeral home, and coming to grips with both her closeted father's death and her own emerging sexuality.

Many of Grasso's classmates defended the book's literary merit.

“Reading the book will allow you to open your mind to a new perspective and examine a way of life and thinking with which you are unfamiliar,” wrote freshman Marivi Howell-Arza.

Others agreed with Grasso, though.

“The nature of ‘Fun Home’ ... violates my conscience due to its pornographic nature,” Freshman Jeffrey Wubbenhorst wrote in an email.

“Duke did not seem to have people like me in mind,” Grasso told the Duke Chronicle. “It was like Duke didn’t know we existed, which surprises me.”

What surprises us is that students at a top school think they're only supposed to read things that confirm their ideology.