Re: Upset over LGBTQ books, a Michigan town defunds its library in tax vote

In article <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Good!  It's about time people started fighting back against FORCED ACCEPTANCE of queers.
>

JAMESTOWN TOWNSHIP—What started as a fight over an LGBTQ-themed 
graphic novel may end with the closure of a west Michigan public 
library.

Voters in Jamestown Township, a politically conservative 
community in Ottawa County, rejected renewal Tuesday of a 
millage that would support the Patmos Library. That vote guts 
the library’s operating budget in 2023 — 84 percent of the 
library’s $245,000 budget comes from property taxes collected 
through a millage.

Without a millage, the library is likely to run out of money 
sometime late next year, said Larry Walton, library board 
president.

“I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” Walton told Bridge 
Michigan Tuesday. “The library is the center of the community. 
For individuals to be short sighted to close that down over 
opposing LGBTQ is very disappointing.”

There have been protests at other Michigan public libraries and 
at school board meetings about books with LGBTQ themes. But 
Tuesday may be the first time a community voted, in effect, to 
close its library rather than have it remain open with books 
some consider to be “indoctrinating” children.

Voters on Tuesday rejected the millage renewal by a 25-point 
margin — 62 percent to 37 percent — on the same day voters 
approved millages for road improvements and the fire department.

Ten years earlier, a library millage at a slightly lower rate 
was approved by 37 percentage points.

For the average home with a market value of $250,000, the new 
millage, if approved, would have increased taxes about $24.

Debbie Mikula, executive director of the Michigan Library 
Association, said Wednesday there were about 40 public library 
millages on ballots across the state Tuesday, and all but a 
handful passed. No others that failed appeared to be due to 
cultural issues like with the Patmos millage, she said.

The difference, according to voters who spoke to Bridge Tuesday: 
Books in the adult and young adult section of the Patmos Library 
that depict, in some cases in detail, same-sex relationships.

Earlier this year, a parent raised concerns about the graphic 
novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” located in the adult graphic 
novel section. The book tells the story of the author’s coming 
of age as nonbinary, and includes illustrations of sex acts.

As many as 50 people attended several library board meetings 
this spring, meetings that typically draw only a handful of 
residents. At those meetings, residents demanded the book be 
pulled from the shelves. The library board moved the book behind 
the counter, where children couldn’t happen upon it by accident.

Complaints were filed about several other books, including 
“Spinning,” a graphic novel about a teen girl and her attraction 
to other girls, and “Kiss Number 8,” a graphic novel with 
similar themes. Those books remain on the shelves of the young 
adult (high-school age) graphic novels section.

Library Director Amber McLain resigned this spring, telling 
Bridge she had been harassed online and accused of 
indoctrinating children. Interim director Matthew Lawrence 
resigned later.

When the Patmos staff and elected board of directors declined to 
remove the  books from the library’s collection, some upset 
residents organized an effort to defeat the library’s millage 
renewal.

The group, called Jamestown Conservatives, passed out flyers at 
the town’s Memorial Day parade that referenced “Gender Queer: a 
Memoir,” a Pride Month display at the library and a director 
who, in the group’s words,  “promoted the LGBTQ ideology.”

“Pray that we can make changes and make the Patmos Library a 
safe and neutral place for our children,” the flyer said.

Yard signs urging residents to vote no on the library millage 
popped up along Riley Street, Jamestown’s main drag. One sign 
was directly across the street from the library, and another was 
conspicuously in the lawn of a library board member. That board 
member could not be reached for comment.

One resident posted a large, homemade sign that said, “50 
percent increase to GROOM our kids? Vote NO on Library!”

Salem Sousley, who identifies as nonbinary and lives close by, 
said when they see the sign “it turns my stomach.”

Having books young adults can access on LGBT themes “is 
incredibly important,” Sousley said. “When I was growing up in 
Jenison (in Ottawa County), the language of who I was as a 
nonbinary person didn’t exist yet. When I read ‘Gender Queer,’ 
it was the first time I ever saw myself represented in a book.

“So many kids are struggling in silence, especially in areas 
like this,” Sousley said. “Having access to resources and 
materials of people who are sharing your experiences is 
literally life-saving.”

Jamestown Township, population just under 10,000, is politically 
conservative even for conservative Ottawa County. The township 
voted for Donald Trump for president by a margin of 76-21 
percent in 2020. About 92 percent of residents are white, and 
the median income of $81,000 is 37 percent higher than that of 
the state median household income of $59,000.

The village of Jamestown, which is within the township, has 
streets of well-maintained homes and sidewalks shaded by large 
trees, with construction of new subdivisions nearby. There is an 
ice cream shop at the main intersection, just across a parking 
lot from the township library.

The library is built to resemble a train depot, commemorating 
the interurban trolley that ran from Holland to Grand Rapids a 
century earlier. Inside the library on Tuesday, staffers helped 
patrons check out books and find materials. A young mother 
laughed as her son played with hand puppets. Someone had brought 
a box of zucchini, with a sign for patrons to help themselves.

The main display inside the library was of “never out of print 
classics,” including the Bible and Ayn Rand's “The Fountainhead.”

One of the township’s three voting precincts Tuesday was in the 
community room of the library. Most of the people who spoke to 
Bridge outside the library said they voted to defund the 
facility.

“We don’t need to see those books out front,” said Sarah 
Johnson. “We’re all for the library. I use it. We want to make a 
statement that we want some say in the books (chosen to be in 
the collection).”

Steve Wiltz said he voted no  because of “some of the materials 
that are in here I don’t agree with.”

Amanda Ensing, one of the organizers of the Jamestown 
Conservatives group, emerged from the library Tuesday wearing an 
“I voted” sticker. “They are trying to groom our children to 
believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Ensing said 
of library officials. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a 
Biblical issue.”

Walton, the library board president, had been optimistic that 
the millage would pass when he spoke to Bridge Michigan on 
election day.

On Tuesday afternoon as votes were still being cast, Walton said 
that if the millage was defeated, the library would continue to 
receive tax funds from the old millage through the first quarter 
of 2023. After those funds dry up and the library’s fund 
reserves of about $325,000 are depleted, “we would close,” he 
said.

Walton estimated that closure would be in fall 2023, barring a 
second millage renewal attempt approved by voters before then.

Most people who said they voted to defund the library Tuesday, 
said they didn’t believe it would close.

But without tax funds, the library doesn’t bring in enough in 
grants, fines and community room rentals to keep its doors open.

With a library closure, that community room where residents 
voted Tuesday would be unavailable, Walton said, so would the 
mobile wifi hotspots used by  residents who lack wifi in their 
homes.

“There are community members who sit in the parking lot to use 
our wifi,” said Marcia Frobish, who serves on the library board. 
“The library is a lot more than books.”

The library has 67,000 books, videos and other items in its 
collection, of which about 90 have an LGBTQ theme, library 
officials said.

Ensing, who helped organize the no campaign, said she hoped the 
millage rejection would be a “wake-up call” that would encourage 
library officials to remove books from shelves that community 
members find objectionable.

If that’s done, “they can ask for a millage again,” she said.

But Walton didn’t appear ready to compromise Tuesday. He said he 
didn’t believe the library needed a wake-up call and shouldn’t 
remove books.

“A wake-up call to what? To take LGBTQ books off the shelf and 
then they will give us money? What do you call that? Ransom?

“We stand behind the fact that our community is made up of a 
very diverse group of individuals, and we as a library cater to 
the diversity of our community,” he said.

Walton could not be reached Wednesday.

Mikula of the library association said the Patmos Library could 
still get a millage on the November ballot, if ballot language 
is given to the Ottawa County clerk’s office by Aug. 16.

But after having just lost by 25 points, turning around public 
sentiment in less than three months might be difficult without 
concessions by the library, which Mikula said is difficult 
because public libraries must follow its “collection development 
policies. If patrons have challenged (books) and the library 
board has made a decision to keep them, then … the First 
Amendment protects the process.”

It’s a difficult position for the library, Mikula acknowledged. 
“It's hard to look at being threatened with the closure of your 
library because they won’t remove LGBT materials.”

Frobish, the board member, said she doesn’t want to remove 
materials from the library, but didn’t know what the board would 
do. “We’re in uncharted territory,” she said.

A millage ballot effort in 2023 would be difficult because there 
are no elections scheduled for that year, which would force the 
library to pick up the cost of holding a millage vote, Mikula 
said.

The library board will talk about its financial outlook at its 
next meeting on Monday.

“I love my country, and I believe what is happening is going 
against the First Amendment,” said Lawrence, the former 
director. “The people who need the library the most can’t vote 
because they are children.”

Children don't need to have queerness forced in their faces.  
Let them be children.

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/upset-over-lgbtq-
books-michigan-town-defunds-its-library-tax-vote