Missouri
Republicans in early April voted to cut all
public funding for libraries as part of their
state budget proposal.
Leading
the move was Cody
Smith,
a top Republican lawmaker and chair of the
state’s budget committee, who made no attempt to
hide the fact that he was retaliating against
librarians because they dared to join the ACLU
in suing the state over a Republican-led
book ban.
Smith said,
“I don’t think we should subsidize the attempts
to overturn laws that we also created,” even
though the ACLU is entirely funding the lawsuit.
Indeed,
Republicans forced Missouri’s librarians into
suing their state in what appears to be yet
another flashpoint in the GOP’s increasingly
desperate culture wars. In 2022 the GOP
passed SB
775,
criminalizing librarians for providing “sexually
explicit” material to minors. They face a $2,000
fine or up to a year in jail if found in
violation of the bizarre law.
Thankfully,
the state Senate Appropriations Committee moved
quickly to restore public library funding, with
Senate Republican Lincoln
Hough admitting,
“I think it was kind of a punitive cut that the
House made.”
But
the threat still remains after Missouri’s
Republican State Secretary Jay
Ashcroft pushed
through an administrative rule that threatens
funding if libraries violate the book ban. He
did so in an explicitly undemocratic manner,
saying, “I have to figure out how to do this,
because by rule I can get it done much more
quickly than if I wait on the legislature.”
“Defund the Library” could be
the GOP’s new slogan, succinctly encompassing
a free-market agenda to destroy public funding
of institutions that enlighten and educate,
all under the disingenuous banner of
“protecting children.”
Missouri’s
library debacle isn’t an isolated
incident. Patmos
Library in
Jamestown, Michigan, lost its public funding
last November after it refused to ban books that
conservative voters deemed objectionable.
Louisiana Republicans
are also advancing a state bill that threatens
library funding over material deemed
objectionable.
And
Texas Republicans voted to cut library funding
in retaliation for
“drag queen story hour” readings, again claiming
to do so in order to protect children from being
exposed to men and gender-nonconforming
individuals wearing makeup and dresses with
pride.
A Vox
analysis of
libraries under attack explained the disturbing
trend: “Usually, lawmakers start with book bans.
If the bans aren’t as effective as they’d hope,
they escalate to threatening to defund local
libraries.”
U.S.
libraries have long been institutions embodying
freedom: the freedom to learn, and to do so
anonymously, without regard to one’s financial
status. When Congress rushed through the USA
PATRIOT Act in the aftermath of the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, librarians were
among the first to counter the anti-democratic
law, refusing to spy on their users for the
government. They stood up to the federal
government and even the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. One Connecticut librarian
named Peter
Chase,
who was bound by a government gag order over a
requirement to turn over records, said, “As a
librarian, I believe it is my duty and
responsibility to speak out about any
infringement to the intellectual freedom of
library patrons.”
Libraries
offer free use of computers and free
internet service,
an especially important service for people
living in low-income neighborhoods, rural areas,
and tribal communities. During the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns forced
children out of classrooms, many libraries
created community hot spots and enabled Wi-Fi
access in their parking lots so that kids
without home internet could connect remotely
with their classrooms.
Libraries
do so much more than lend books. They offer
passport services, help with job applications
and school research, and provide low-cost or
free spaces for community events. They promote
local authors and participate in city-wide
reading programs and book clubs. A 2021 California
report on
libraries in the state concluded that “Through
digital labs, makerspaces, career centers and
business resources, memory labs, public
programs, community partnerships, and online
resources, public libraries help communities
explore, learn, connect, and have fun beyond
their traditional ‘library’ brand.”
When
Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders ran
for president in the 2016 election, he cited
public funding of libraries as an example of
democratic socialism in action, and libraries as
“socialist institutions.”
Indeed,
these socialist institutions are hugely popular.
A Gallup
poll of
leisure activities conducted every 10 years
found in 2019 that going to the library was “the
most common cultural activity Americans engage
in,” even more so than going to the movie
theater. Libraries were far more popular among
women than men, and low-income residents were
far more likely to use their local library’s
services than their higher-income neighbors.
In
Michigan, where several libraries are dealing
with book bans and where Patmos Library in
Jamestown faced defunding, a March 2023 poll found
broad support among the public, across party
lines and political affiliations, to support
libraries and the free dissemination of
information.
These
days it seems as though any public institution
that actually helps and protects Americans is
ripe for Republican-led destruction. It’s no
wonder that conservatives are taking
aim at
this pillar of American democracy, deeming
libraries “bastions of Marxism,” and “woke”
purveyors of material that encourages racial
justice and questions sexual orthodoxy. Not only
have hundreds of books
been banned across
the country, but Republicans, like the ones in
Missouri, are threatening librarians across the
nation with fines and imprisonment. The Washington
Post in
a May 2023 analysis found that “[a]t least seven
states have passed such laws in the last two
years.”
Unlike
police, who routinely
kill and maim Americans,
and who rightfully deserve to be targeted with
defunding, and unlike gun manufacturers whose
weapons continue to wreak constant violence
and death across
the country, librarians are the ones protecting
and serving the public and its right to access
information freely. But the GOP prefers to
protect police and weapons makers while
attacking librarians.
One
New Jersey high school librarian named Martha
Hickson was
shocked to face unfounded accusations from a
conservative of being “a pedophile, a
pornographer, and a groomer of children,” during
a heated debate over a book ban.
It
turns out that not only do Republicans have a
deep disdain for librarians, but also for
children, the purported focus of their
vociferous concerns.
Setting
aside the GOP’s failure to protect children
from mass
shooters,
Republican lawmakers have often shielded sexual
predators. Pennsylvania Republicans refused
to hold the church accountable for
years of sexual abuse of children. Dozens of
House Republicans refused
to vote for
the Respect for Child Survivors Act, a bill that
would have protected child victims of sexual
abuse. And Republican Congressman Louie
Gohmert even
praised a pastor friend and read his sermon on
the House floor—a pastor who was a convicted
child sexual abuser.
In
fact, Daily Kos has a forum where
readers submit news reports of “Republican
Sexual Predators, Abusers, and Enablers.” The
list is shockingly long.
Indeed,
we should not be surprised to find out then that
a Kansas City right-wing activist named Ryan
Utterback,
who pushed for Missouri’s book ban on the basis
of protecting kids from LGBT-themed books,
turned out to be an accused sexual predator.
Utterback faces a felony charge of second-degree
child sexual molestation.
In
the battle over who really protects our
children—librarians or Republicans—librarians
are the ones who belong in our good books.
This
commentary was
produced
by Economy
for All,
a project of the
Independent
Media Institute.
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