I'm Fighting Book Bans at My Tennessee Library
Facebook created by Matt and Tiffany Fee, two concerned Rutherford County residents, also instrumental in the formation of The Rutherford County Library Alliance (RCLA) Facebook group.I became an active member and now serve as vice president.
We started preparing to appear at the August 28 library board meeting where the board of directors would decide the fate of six books one library patron had challenged.It was standing room only.
What I witnessed that day was disturbing: Board members laughing as they were unable to correctly say "LGBTQ+," cherry-picking sentences from some of the targeted books, and taking them out of context.They also showed a lack of understanding of how the Miller Test works, the longstanding historic legal test for determining whether expression constitutes obscenity.
They tried to gaslight, unconvincingly, that it was "just a coincidence that all the books were LGBTQ+."Most horrifyingly of all, a board member demanded from library staff the name of the person responsible for allowing the books to be on the shelves in what felt to me like an attempt to intimidate.After that meeting, I knew we needed to fight.
