“We have all seen where these far-left thinking groups are going and taking our country. It will continue to get worse if we ALL don’t support each other and take a stand against what we know is wrong, honor God, and take a stand for our children and future generations. I thank you for your time in reading this and ask you to seek God for His guidance. There is only so much we can do at the federal level but if we all stand together to defend our own communities, then we will make a difference. God bless.”
Thus concludes an eight-page timeline from Gina Reno Woodlee, a resident of Arlington, Texas. Woodlee, who calls herself a conservative, religious Christian, and an activist–and whose Facebook profile pushes issues such because the “Christians Engaged” platform (“We are to be “Biblical”, not “political” and interact in our cities, guaranteeing all leaders are like minded and like spirited, aligning to our biblical values”) and actions instigated by Mass Resistance (a Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group)–has been reeling over actions taken by the Arlington Public Library over the previous few years.
What are these actions, you would possibly ask?
Having a Pride e book show in the youngsters’s and teenage areas of the general public library throughout June.
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Arlington, Texas lies between Dallas and Fort Worth and boasts a inhabitants of practically 400,000. It is the fiftieth most populated metropolis in the United States and the most important metropolis in the state of Texas that isn’t a county seat. Arlington is in Tarrant County, which has been a reliably conservative county; 2020, nonetheless, the county handed its first victory to a democratic president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Just two years earlier, the county elected Beto O’Rourke over Ted Cruz for Senate. Though it has stood as probably the most populated conservative counties in the nation, the panorama has been shifting.
The Arlington Public Library (APL) has seven places. This contains one downtown location, alongside six department places unfold throughout the town.
Like most public libraries, creating e book shows are a part of what library staff do. These shows spotlight native pursuits, share supplies from the gathering which could be ignored or that patrons might not find out about, and educate neighborhood members about individuals, teams, and cultures of be aware. They are incessantly timed with the seasons, as queries about sure matters go hand-in-hand with the calendar: readers need books about fall when the seasons change and are excited to select up romances in February. Library staff anticipate these wants and create shows to be proactive in showcasing what is accessible.
In 2020 and 2021, the City of Arlington’s former mayor Jeff Williams declared June as Pride Month, issuing proclamations that confirmed the town’s motion towards higher inclusivity. Such proclamations are very important for neighborhood members to really feel welcome and for precise change to occur on the bottom–Arlington has voted in anti-discrimination in housing ordinances, put in LGBTQ+ liaison positions for municipal staff, and extra. The metropolis’s Municipality Equality Index, given by the Human Rights Council, rating elevated to 100 from 63 in late 2020.
None of this got here with out pushback, which started to hit fever pitch in May 2022.
The above clip from a May 24, 2022 metropolis council assembly reveals one of many quite a few devoted anti-LGBTQ+ audio system who’ve made themselves a staple at these and metropolis library board conferences since spring. This is Jonathan Shelley, Pastor of the Stedfast Baptist Church, a non secular establishment deemed an LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Shelley just isn’t an Arlington resident, neither is his church in Arlington.
Woodlee referred to as for her contingent of right-wing activists to point out up at the May City Council assembly, and so they did. In addition to a number of members of the Stedfast congregation exhibiting as much as converse towards Pride and e book shows, Woodlee reported throughout her time at the mic that her consultant, Raul Gonzalez, was sympathetic to her and agreed these shows weren’t acceptable (whether or not or not that is true is tough to confirm, as that correspondence just isn’t included in her prolonged timeline, shared under). One commenter, Darrell Montgomery, mentioned it was time to eliminate the shows as a result of youngsters’s books “shouldn’t be used for grownup agendas.“
It is essential to state that, regardless of the loud minority voices at the May assembly, most of those that confirmed as much as converse had been in favor of Pride, the declaration of Pride Month, and all of its associated festivities, together with e book shows.
Once Woodlee’s request to her associates and colleagues was despatched, imploring them to point out as much as the May City Council assembly, Norma Zuniga, Director of the APL, requested her employees what the plans had been for e book shows. Display circumstances at the department libraries can be Juneteenth centered, whereas most libraries mentioned that they had plans for small Pride shows in their youngsters’s/teen sections.
There was, nonetheless, disagreement between what was reported at the downtown department–”DT – Teens – show; DT – Children’s – We thought we might have a bit of mini show in youngsters’s with a couple of books set out on the cupboards underneath the TVs,” per an e-mail at 5:08 p.m. May 10, from Stacy Garcia, APL’s Administrator and what Ivonne Kieffer, APL’s Administrator of Operations and Facility Management stories at 5:24 pm the identical day, “If you are asking specifically to Gay Pride Children’s and Teens displays we are not displaying it at DWTN. We are staying neutral until we get request/feedback that they want it.”
Kieffer’s e-mail continues by noting that, “The library’s feedback/surveys is one major component we use to consider our development of programs, services and everything we do. We also align ourselves to other city priorities and initiatives to determine what we do. As of now, I have not received anything. If Stacy has received anything I would like to look into it. Btw, the Unity Council Report has several Focus Areas and Recommendations and we align ourselves with that. The report has an LGBTQ feedback page (4 comments), but it’s general to living in Arlington. Nothing specific to offering programs, services,..etc. I have charged my staff if they happen to get comments, surveys, or any type of feedback on this topic to please send it to me. That will be very helpful to have to later on have something to show WHY we decided to do it or offer it.”
It is unclear whether or not the downtown library had Pride shows this 12 months, however a number of different branches had them deliberate.
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So why now, six months later, is speaking in regards to the spring conferences at Arlington City Council and the Library Board necessary? Because the battle over who does–and doesn’t–get to be represented in the library remains to be at stake.
A Reddit put up in September highlighted the continued efforts by a number of totally different teams throughout Arlington to get LGBTQ+ e book shows faraway from the APL. The one that wrote the put up added extra context all through the thread, suggesting that a number of pastors of native church buildings had been planning to fulfill with library administration.
And it seems, certainly, they did.
Among those that met with Zuniga to debate queer supplies in the libraries included Gary Hutchison with Grace Community Church (which preaches and practices anti-LGBTQ religion). Hutchinson and the others in attendance at the assembly–their identities aren’t recognized, however may very well be assumed from watching the May City Council assembly–prompt these books are damaging to the psychological well being of kids.
The APL employees has been working to construct a show coverage in the wake of the complaints from summer season 2021, and in assembly behind closed doorways with a number of non secular entities, it has created an aura of suspicion about the place and the way non-public people are having a say in the insurance policies impacting a public establishment.
A draft coverage proposal for shows went to library advisory board members in early October for consideration. The coverage would have restricted Pride shows to the grownup areas inside libraries solely and subject shows with “a possible age-specific sensitivity or concern will be limited to the adult areas,” in keeping with the Shorthorn. In different phrases, no shows of LGBTQ+ supplies can be allowed in the youngsters’s or teen sections of the library. Woodlee and others had been in attendance at the assembly, making their place loud and clear.
The board made no resolution on the brand new coverage, tabling it in favor of in search of extra public enter on it. Chair of the board Catherine Serna-Horn prompt it will led to quiet censorship.
In addition to the common speaking factors about LGBTQ+ books being dangerous and getting used for “grooming,” attendees at the assembly started circulating photos from the e book The Pervert by Michelle Perez. This led Serna-Horn to ask for pornographic and specific books be mentioned alongside the show coverage at the subsequent assembly.
That assembly might be held October 27 at 5:30 pm.
As of but, there is no such thing as a public survey posted in regards to the show coverage. The draft coverage has additionally not been shared or archived on the town’s web site for the library council.
Note that library advisory board conferences, in contrast to these for the City Council, aren’t recorded and minutes and agendas aren’t readily accessible on the town or library web site.
What does all of this imply?
That’s a very good query.
I filed a Freedom of Information Request after being alerted to the Reddit put up. The request yielded dozens of pages of paperwork, primarily responses to and from Woodlee’s name to motion in May. There are a number of gaps in correspondence, and, maybe most noteworthy, there’s a distinction in tone between the library employees creating e book shows and people in administration.
As famous above, downtown libraries deliberate two Pride shows for this June. One can be in youngsters’s and one in teen. That was shortly adopted up with an e-mail from Kieffer, APL’s Administrator of Operations and Facility Management, who mentioned they had been taking a stance of neutrality and never continuing with these shows.
Ten minutes after Kieffer acknowledged neutrality, Katie Talhelm, the Youth Services Manager of the downtown library, despatched the next e-mail to Kieffer, Garcia, and Zuniga.
Shortly thereafter, Kieffer responds.
Apparently, analysis on the worth of and objective behind Pride shows is data that isn’t price sharing with the director of libraries and that very same director is “bombarded with other things.”
Something just isn’t including up, between what seems to be quiet censorship of deliberate shows, secret conferences with non secular leaders (and it must be emphasised that church buildings in Texas aren’t tax-paying entities), and a listing of over 430 e book titles shared between Daniel Bull, Library Services Manager for Cataloging and Acquisitions, and Zuniga on April 21, 2022. The listing, merely titled “BibliographicRecordsSet_Challenged_TitlesOnly” and out there to look at right here, comes with little context or clarification. The titles listed embody their places, and the titles on this listing are these discovered on Matt Kraus’s e book banning listing from November.
Are these the identical titles being challenged by the teams pushing for show bans? Are they associated to the Kraus listing? Are they one thing all collectively totally different?
It’s not clear.
Public libraries have a duty to their communities. This contains assembly the wants of the whole neighborhood and it means being clear. By backing down from annual Pride shows at the voice of some bigoted people–a lot of whom invoke violent language and dangerously partisan rhetoric about queer individuals, queer our bodies, and queer lives–the Arlington Public Library is failing to meet its primary objective for the town.
There is not any neutrality in public librarianship.
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