Quote:
Originally Posted by jhowell
In my youth I spent a lot of time in my local library. It makes me sad that this library is being used by both sides as a weapon in a fight over social issues.
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I don't see this as a 'both sides' issue.
Why are books with LGBT themes inherently on one side? If the same people also started demanding books featuring peanut butter be banned, would that make cook books suddenly liberal? If those people wanted books on Malcolm X banned, would you support the libraries removing his autobiography?
There is one side who was whipped up with tales conflating LGBT people with pedophiles and those whipped up people were set loose on their local libraries and school boards.
In the end, the library was defunded over 90 books out of 67,000. That is 0.134%. I would wager that those 90 books have not been read (or even heard of) by the people supporting the defunding of the library. I would also wager that the proportion of LGBT citizens in Jamestown, MI is over 1%. Surely they are entitled to have books they feel reflect their life experiences?
When it comes down to it, poor GenderQueer is being used for scare mongering. It was in the adult section, not the children's section to begin with. Is GenderQueer (which I actually read before it became a scapegoat) really any worse or more explicit than books by Henry Miller, E.L. James, Anaïs Nin, Zane or even Anne Rice/Anne Rampling?
And even so, the librarians moved it 'under the counter' as if it were pornography. But that wasn't good enough.