Nora Roberts Donates 50k To Library Defunded for LGBTQ Books

Patmos Library in Michigan was the sufferer of a conservative propaganda marketing campaign that inspired residents to vote to defund the library as a result of it refused to take away LGBTQ books from the cabinets. Jamestown Conservatives put up indicators calling the librarians “groomers.” This marketing campaign was efficient, and the library was on monitor to have to shut inside a yr due to lack of funding.

That’s when a number of residents stepped as much as begin a GoFundMe to assist the library hold their doorways open till they will safe ongoing funding. It quickly raised over $100,000, a few of which the library plans to make use of to do their very own marketing campaign to have one other millage (tax funding) vote in November.

Recently, although, the GoFundMe bought an enormous identify (and large greenback quantity) funder: the romance novelist Nora Roberts. She donated $50,000, and within the feedback, she defined that that is the cap for GoFundMe donations, however to contact her in the event that they don’t meet their aim, and she or he’d high it off.

The GoFundMe has now surpassed $245,000 from 1000’s of donors, which represents your entire quantity that they’d misplaced from the millage vote. This offers the library time to marketing campaign for ongoing funding: within the earlier vote, they solely had $1,000 to get the phrase out.

Conservative teams like this usually have deep pockets. This crowdfunding effort permits the library the power to counteract these messages with the realities of how central the library is to the neighborhood. The individuals who want and use the library essentially the most should not those concerned within the Jamestown Conservatives group: they’re usually essentially the most susceptible folks locally, together with youngsters who wouldn’t in any other case have entry to the supplies and programming the library offers.

And as for the LGBTQ books? There are literally extra Nora Roberts novels on the library’s cabinets than all of the LGBTQ books put collectively. But these 90 books, which make up lower than 1% of the gathering, aren’t going wherever. The president of the library board has acknowledged, “The books will remain exactly where they are on the shelves.”