Library Forced to Remove LGBTQ Books to Stay Open
Kansas Reflector, all five city commissioners have ties to the Society of St. Pius X, a conservative religious sect with significant influence over the town.While the commissioners are technically not supposed to control decisions regarding how the library functions, they sought to pressure Cremer into deciding between keeping the library branch open, or parting with some books that ran against the commissioners’ personal moral and religious beliefs.Last year, St.
Marys Mayor Matthew Childs, a commission member, attempted to insert a renewal clause in the library’s release that would have required it to remove all LGBTQ titles, as well as any books deemed “socially divisive.”The clause was dropped last December after public backlash.However, in April, commissioners resumed their crusade, with commissioners demanding the removal of all books with LGBTQ content.“If they want to have their library, so be it,” Commissioner Gerard Kleinsmith said, according to the Kansas Register. “I will not ever vote for any taxpayer money, facilities, anything to be used anywhere that houses this kind of garbage.”As part of this planned purge of books, an advisory committee was assembled to evaluate the books in the library’s collection.To carry out their campaign, the committee searched the library’s catalog for keyword like “gay,” “transgender,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “queer,” coming up with a dozen books that were removed from the St.
Marys library’s junior collection and relocated to other branches.Cremer told the Reflector that the removed titles were “pretty mild” and that the books in question didn’t reflect anything that “isn’t normal in mainstream society.” Among those flagged by the committee were Squad, Blood Countess, The Great American Whatever, Beyond Clueless, Red Rolls of Magic, Infinity Son, and Icebreaker.“Most of these titles, the topic really isn’t LGBTQ or anything like that,” Cremer said. “It’s just describing a reality that is normal now for most.
