Throughout the town, members of the group posted signage highlighting the library’s LGBTQ+ materials. The library, which has been receiving challenges about everything from specific queer books like Gender Queer to Pride month book displays to books that have nothing to do with LGBTQ+ people, has been painted as an institution with groomers and that books in the collection are part of indoctrination efforts.

“They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Amanda Ensing said of library officials, according to Bridge Michigan. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.” Ensing is one of the organizers of the conservative group.

https://bookriot.com/patmos-library-millage-denied/



A small-town library is at risk of shutting down after residents of Jamestown, Michigan, voted to defund it rather than tolerate certain LGBTQ+-themed books.

Residents voted on Tuesday to block a renewal of funds tied to property taxes, Bridge Michigan reported.

The vote leaves the library with funds through the first quarter of next year. Once a reserve fund is used up, it would be forced to close, Larry Walton, the library board’s president, told Bridge Michigan – harming not just readers but the community at large. Beyond books, residents visit the library for its wifi, he said, and it houses the very room where the vote took place.

“Our libraries are places to read, places to gather, places to socialize, places to study, places to learn. I mean, they’re the heart of every community,” Deborah Mikula, executive director of the Michigan Library Association, told the Guardian. “So how can you lose that?”

“We are champions of access,” she added, including materials that might appeal to some in the community and not others. “We want to make sure that libraries protect the right to read.”


https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/05/michigan-library-book-bans-lgbtq-authors



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2022 01:30PM by anybody.

For some 'reason' the funding of schools, libraries, and even fire departments in some locations was optional to be determined periodically by voters.

How.Stupid.

Here in Washington, the state passed limits on local funding % as to property taxes, but controls ('out of control' is better) on vehicle taxes & fees.

What.A.Mess taxes / taxation is, nearly everywhere.

it seems that the only time politicians are accountable is election times.

>> “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.” <<


"The following are some of the reasons why the Bible is considered as a form of a library. The Bible is a collection of 66 books. The Bible was written using different literary styles e.g. poetic, prayers. The different books were written by different authors from different backgrounds."

The bible is considered a form of a library. Don't refund the bible!

Having followed this issue, it's not LGBTQ authors that are being banned, it's sexually explicit content involving children that gets banned. As it should be.

The argument has been poorly framed to make it look like right wing extremists are trying to exclude anybody who isn't heterosexual from publishing books. That's not what is happening.

Hell, if we banned all content created by gays, we'd lose a lot of literature, music, and art.

Gender Queer, for example, has been pulled from libraries because it showed sexually explicit content.
https://www.opindia.com/2021/11/us-media-org-supports-gender-queer-a-book-that-contains-child-porn/

A few quotes from the article:
"Recently, some schools in South Carolina pulled the book off the shelves after parents objected to explicit drawings in the book."

"Similarly, in September 2021, school systems in north Virginia had to pull some books, including “Gender Queer” from libraries on the grounds that the book contained explicit illustrations of sexual encounters involving children."

Parents who tried to read direct quotes from Gender Queer at school board meetings were kicked out for saying inappropriate things.

It comes down to whether one thinks that showing sexually explicit material to children is ok or not. If you think it's ok, and I come across you, I'll call the police.

If you show my child sexually explicit material, you'd better hope the police find you before I do.

OPie's article lists a whole range of books that are being banned, including non-sexual accounts of non-cis people and their lives, books about Jewish life, books about black people, and books that by some flight of paranoid fancy are about anti-Christian magic--like Harry Potter.

You reply by attempting to discredit the entire phenomenon by attacking a small subset of the banned volumes: in particular, books with sexually explicit material.

The problem with that approach is that you can be right about the subcategory but wrong about the overall category. More precisely, you are correct that books with the illustrations presented in your article should not be available to little children. But what does that have to do with books about Jews or black people, books with no sexual content? How does your correct example justify banning fantasy books like the Harry Potter series?

What is happening is *not* an attack on sexually explicit material: it is an attack on everything that gets in the way of a white Christian nationalist agenda.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What is happening is *not* an attack on sexually
> explicit material: it is an attack on everything
> that gets in the way of a white Christian
> nationalist agenda.
===============================
Well, they're also going to then have to ban the internet.
- Restrictions on which are coming our way soon, undoubtably

My biggest complaint about my local library is the inordinate amount of shelf space taken up by hacks (my view)like James Patterson rather than my literate favorites like James Lee Burke or Phillip Kerr. As a public service libraries are there to meet the broad taste of tax payers, no matter their preferences. The issue of suitability for children could be solved easily with a section that denies them access but perhaps that is too simple a remedy that would stunt the real intent of some to insert the thin edge of the wedge of censorship.

A wise post on multiple scores.