A Kansas city council with ties to extremist Christian fraternity Society of St. Pius X forced a local library to remove youth-oriented LGBTQ+ books in order to renew their lease.
As queer books continue to be banned in the United States, St. Marys branch of the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library has been forced to remove LGBTQ+ books from their junior section.
Last year, St. Marys mayor and council member Mathew Childs proposed a renewal clause in the library’s lease that required the removal of all socially divisive and LGBTQ+ books. The clause was dropped after public backlash, but the council positioned the lease renewal to ensure the removal of LGBTQ+ material for younger audiences.
In November, a six-person committee (about half of whom have ties with the extremist religious sect the Society of St. Pius X) evaluated books by searching the library’s catalog for keywords like “gay,” “transgender,” “lesbian,” bisexual,” and “queer.” About a dozen books were removed from the junior collection and relocated to other branches.
Some of the books removed include Squad, Blood Countess, The Great American Whatever, Beyond Clueless, Red Rolls of Magic, Infinity Son, and Icebreaker.
Library director Judith Cremer says, “(With) most of these titles, the topic really isn’t LGBTQ or anything like that. It’s just describing a reality that is normal now for most people.”
With her priority being keeping the St. Marys Library open, she says, “We need to protect all of our areas of information so that when people need that information to make decisions about their life, we have that information available. I know that, and that’s what I’m striving for. But I do have to compromise to keep the doors open.”
The Kansas Reflector reported that Commission Gerard Kliensmith, a liaison between the city commission and library advisory committee, aims to end the library’s renewal due to library’s collection of LGBTQ+ books, stating, “I will not ever vote for any taxpayer money, facilities, anything to be used anywhere that houses this kind of garbage.”
If silencing people and removing books is akin to taking out the garbage, how does Kliensmith feel about freedom of speech? Perhaps he supports the first amendment when it aligns with his belief system, but it would seem when people outside of his comfort zone exercise this right, it is just garbage.
