The Christian County Library has recently updated their Censorship Policy, so-called, which is the process by which patrons can challenge sexually explicit, pornographic, and other types of materials that do not belong in the children's and teen sections of the library.
While state and federal laws are clear that obscene materials are to be kept from children, public libraries have been following the American Library Association's lead by continuing to place inappropriate materials within reach of children. As noted in a previous article, publishers and activist librarians are flooding the libraries with books and materials that push gender ideology (among other political agendas) even to very small children.
A Sunshine law request to the Christian County Library that asked how many book challenges had been successful from January 2020 to June 2023 brought back one result. The adult version of the Brick Bible, written by an atheist transgender individual, and illustrated by dioramas made from Lego bricks, was relocated to the adult section of the library.
Good on the library!
However, several recent reconsideration requests have been ignored, at least up until 2 p.m. today. One library patron submitted several challenges in June and July, just as the reconsideration form was being updated along with the challenge policy.
Previously, the policy noted that a written response from the executive director would be sent within four-to-six weeks from when the challenge was received. That policy was stated on the library's website policy manual last night until today, when the sentence, "A written response from the Executive Director or designated alternate will be sent within four to six weeks" was changed to read, "...a Request for Reconsideration form may be submitted and the Executive Director will respond."
To date, it is nearly nine weeks and no response to several challenges.
While the policy was updated in June 2023, it still included the time frame response of the Executive Director. Now that it has gone missing, when are library patrons to expect a response? And why haven't challenge decisions been publicly posted on the website--at least anywhere noted and accessible?
A new state rule requires challenge results be posted publicly:
"(F) The library has or will adopt a written, publicly accessible library materials challenge policy by which any parent or guardian of a minor within the library district may dispute or challenge the library’s age-appropriate designation affixed to any presentation, event, material, or display in the library, and the results of any such dispute or challenge shall be disclosed to the public and published on the library’s website."
While a new reconsideration form has been added to the website, it would seem fair to grandfather in the older forms that were already out in the community. The new form states, "Please note that incomplete forms will not be processed." Additionally, the new form asks, "Are you the parent or guardian of a minor child (under the age of 18) living within Christian County?" Could this question suppress both parents and those without children from challenging inappropriate materials? Or would it have bearing on how the book challenge is handled by library staff?
The Christian County Library is taxpayer funded and has an annual budget of over $3 million. The library purchased a building next door to the Nixa branch for $2.4 million and will be seeking taxpayer funding for renovating the new building for staff and administration. Currently there are 60 employees of the library. Surely, the staff can respond in a timely and thoughtful manner to book challenges.
Many taxpayers believe their local library, funded mainly by local dollars, is under local direction. It makes sense to believe that, since library staff and governing boards are usually local citizens.
But right under our noses libraries are being colonized by ideologies
and agendas that are foreign to the local community. Policies are being
put in place that have more to do with the political goals of leftist
organizations than our Republic.
In fact, local libraries have become community change agents, pushing such things as Critical Race Theory (CRT) , Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the LGBTQ+
agenda. Specifically, sexually explicit books are being actively
displayed and pushed on children in thousands of libraries across the
nation.
Depending on the size of the local library or library association, the cost to join the ALA
can be anywhere from $175 for a very small library to $2,000 for a very
large library. In Christian County, the cost would reflect a medium
library of $500. For Greene County the cost would be $1,300 for a larger
population. As can be seen from the link there are numerous divisions
and round tables that can be joined for a fee, and then there are individual memberships for librarians and library staff.
Assuming these fees are paid out of the local library’s budget,
taxpayers are footing the bill to have their own communities
indoctrinated. Additionally, the ALA has a legion of organizations
either spun off or closely associated, that promote any number of
extreme left agendas. One such organization is a group named EveryLibrary, a 501(c)4 that was founded by John Chrastka, who previously worked for the ALA.
According to Dan Kleinman of Safe Libraries, who has written about EveryLibrary previously, “It
has a history of deceptive training. It guided librarians how to
silence parents who complain about p*rn in the library… Librarians were
trained to use a ‘very common political ploy.’ Another technique is
‘never mention or directly oppose or attack the person making the
original claim. Simply bury their claim in great stories that tell a
counter account of their experience.’ We will see below that’s exactly
what they do when they attack Moms For Liberty without naming it. ‘The
last technique you can use is to simply ignore them.’”
EveryLibrary’s founder, Chrastka, has written a pair of books that
teach librarians how to gain funding during political campaigns.
According to the introductory description of Before the Ballot,
“Let’s be blunt: library
funding is political. And the struggle to secure funding is ongoing;
the work that librarians need to do to influence local politics doesn’t
just pop up in the few months before Election Day. It should span the
years before or between elections. [Bolding added] The authors’
previous book ‘Winning Elections and Influencing Politicians for
Library Funding’ targeted library ballot committees and advocacy
organizations. But their new book speaks directly to librarians, library
staff, and boards. It is designed to help library leaders understand
and navigate the political nature of their work in the years leading up
to a ballot measure or political initiative. Sharing the tools and
tactics developed by their organization EveryLibrary, the nation’s first
and only Political Action Committee for Libraries…”
Why have libraries–historically understood as apolitical and
dedicated to promoting reading in their communities–become political?
Short answer: The American Library Association.
THE TENTACLES OF THE ALA
For most of its history, the ALA has had a decided leftward slant.
But in recent years, and especially with the election of an openly
Marxist president, Emily Drabinski, the ALA has militantly advocated for
the LGBTQ+ agenda, CRT, and other hard left positions. Through policies
not having the force of law like the “Right to Read” and the “Library Bill of Rights” the ALA is pushing a radical agenda that is having real impact on local communities.
Through advocacy and a quiet colonization of library staff and
boards, local libraries are carrying out a political transformation of
communities on behalf of the ALA. It has come to the point that, in
defiance of state laws, libraries are promoting open access to obscene, sexually explicit and even pornographic materials to children.
James Lindsay, of New Discourses,
has been at the forefront of identifying and opposing the colonization
of our public institutions by Marxists like Emily Drabinski. Below is an
excellent introduction to the Marxist roots of DEI:
She speaks about using her socialist vision to expand out from the local library to the community:
“I’ve been thinking more and more about the public library as,
every square inch that is the public library isn’t a store or a private
equity office building, so if we expand the public library in terms of
both space and the networks that it can take up in a social space, the
more we have for the public. If we think of the public library as the
public square, we want more of that. If we fully fund and expand the
libraries we would reclaim more of the city for the public.
So, can I do that as President of the ALA? Obviously not, all of
these struggles and fights are local, but helping people access the
language of a socialist vision of what the city could be and the role of
the library I think is something I could do.”
SEEING THE CONNECTIONS
Once the connection is made between increasing library funding via
political campaigns to implementing the socialist vision that the new
president of the ALA is envisioning, it is clear that public libraries
have become a focus of infiltration for Socialism/Communism/Marxism.
Later in the interview Drabinski says about campaigning, “I think
the socialist project, along with a range of other movements against
white supremacy, patriarchy, and others, has played a role in the fact
that we can now talk openly about the abolition of the carceral state.
The public conversation about defunding the police, and thinking about
different ways of organizing our relations to one another. To me, that’s
something that’s only possible through deep organizing and is the ethic
that we brought to the campaign.”
And this:
“I tweeted that I was a “Marxist lesbian” when I won, and I
absolutely am a Marxist, and absolutely am a lesbian, but I got a ton of
blowback, which is not great, but I don’t know. We have to be brave, we
have to be willing to fight, and the right has no compunction about
being completely out there with their totally hardcore racist ideals,
and their white replacement theory bullshit. We have to be as brave as
they are and as public as they are, I think…”
SEXUALIZING CHILDREN IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG
It is this political perspective that has overtaken many public
libraries in the United States. A strategy of Socialist goals is the
demoralization of a community, including advocating the early
sexualization of children, the de-funding of police, the dividing into
opposing groups of local populations, and other strategies that will be
addressed later.
In short, citizens are paying for the destruction of their
communities and the sexualization of children through taxpayer-funded
local libraries.
The ALA also provides a deep well of resources, training, consulting, and legal aid to assist librarians and boards. There are extensive ALA resources provided to libraries to keep sexually explicit books in the children’s sections.
“The real question is do you trust librarians to decide what your
family is allowed to read. Librarians have a “Library Bill of Rights”
that contains the Marxist idea that all ages can access all materials.
That’s why they allow kids to read pervasively vulgar materials. So kids
would get anything at all from a librarian, and indeed that’s what we
are seeing again and again in the news. That “Bill of Rights” sham is in
almost every library. That’s the every library in EveryLibrary. To them
EveryLibrary means every library will allow kids access to
inappropriate material because some Marxists added the word “age” to the
“Library Bill of Rights” over fifty years ago, no one’s yet realized,
and we’re going to damn well keep ramming it down people’s throats,
especially the easy targets: school kids away from their parents. So
actually yes, parents ultimately decide what goes on in schools and
libraries—that’s why they elect board members to carry out their wishes,
not the wishes of some Marxists from Chicago, IL, called American
Library Association.”
ACTION ITEM:
Contact your local library and request via the Sunshine law whether your library is a member of the ALA (sample request here). Read here about a Wyoming community that voted to have their library sever ties with the ALA. It can be done!
