Sally, whose classroom had been just a few doors down the hall from mine, and who had been teaching Advance Placement Government, a class that was supposed to explain how our democratic system worked and, perhaps, interest students in a life of public service, was an extremely religious and conservative person who graded on how close a student’s paper came to supporting conservative Christian views.

According to her web site she had wanted to be a celibate missionary for Christ until He introduced her to the minister who would become her future husband. She never made it clear on her web site or in personal conversation whether this introduction was done as a blind date, a simple introduction at a social event, or a tossing off from a horse on the road to some city. Although God never spoke to the woman who was to be the Mother of His Son about her impending impregnation, choosing, instead, to send an emissary, He not only spoke to this teacher that one time, but, seemingly to give into the Yenta side of his Jewish-ness by running her life, Jesus then decided to go further and tell her to have babies and stay home to raise them; to get into teaching when they were grown so He could be brought back to the public schools; and, having accomplished everything up to that point, but not being in a position to change public education from the classroom, run for the state legislature to accomplish this.

She was a short, stocky woman who, as the golf coach, favored Dickie pants with polo shirts and comfortable shoes as her daily dress, and kept her somewhat curly hair in a short bobbed cut. Most people upon first seeing or meeting her assumed she was a Lesbian, often chastising themselves later for giving into accepting a stereotype. This misinterpretation of her outward appearance may have had a part in her beliefs about Gay people.

It seemed that after she was in the legislature she needed to come out of the clichéd gate running, and found her motivation.

Oddly, as it happened this way in every place in America where the book was condemned, locally two parents picked up their children whom they had left at the library unattended, and on the way home asked what books they had gotten. One of the children began to read from a book, King and King, the story of a prince whose mother while attempting to marry him off to a princess found he was actually in love with another prince and had no problem with it. After almost hitting a tree and potentially killing their own children in their horror, the parents called the new representative who then demanded that as the public library was tax funded, this book be removed from all libraries, or those offending libraries which refused to do this would be denied funding from the state. The bad parenting skills of the parents who simply dropped their children off unsupervised in a day in age when children were being abducted, or could be, was obvious. They had not supervised their children, nor helped them pick books out of the library that they intended to read at home, and, upon seeing their own failing, attempted to blind others to it by distraction.

Their obvious failure was somehow lost to the expediency of the moment.

Attracting some very disturbingly conservative people, the legislator went to a Metro Library Commission meeting demanding any book with a “Homosexual Theme”, or which might have spoken of Homosexuality as anything other than an abomination, be removed from the system. Her assumption, apparently, was that as a legislator she would speak, they would listen, there would be no question, and she would be obeyed. I do not think she was aware that people would object to her attempted use of power, or that her wishes would not be so automatically obeyed.

A group of people including legal people from the ACLU, local Gay organizations, library workers and concerned citizens, myself included, went to the same meeting to argue that parents, after instilling in their children their own family values, should view what their children intend to read before they check out a book at any library, rather than demand that if they found something objectionable no one should be allowed to read it.

The commission was to take things under advisement, or avoidance if you will, and hold a few more meetings before any decision was made.

The press was mixed in their reaction to her move, but most often questioned it. Although the media tried mightily to report in a balanced, neutral way, some of her statements which bordered on fanaticism came across that way. As the meetings progressed and the foolishness of her demand became more and more apparent, she modified her demand from removing the books totally from libraries to placing them in a restricted area for books that were controversial in nature without actually describing who would do this, or on what it would be based.

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The commission, for its part, knowing that as libraries are funded by all tax payers, was reluctant to choose and place books apart solely on the opinions and desires of any one group. Even the Bible had its unsavory parts, and fairy tales were rife with negative references to step-mothers that would certainly offend those families that had one. It was conceivable that quite a few originally unintended books with anything anyone might find objectionable would be put in a totally separate place apart from the other books. There just wasn‘t enough space in any library to accommodate all the books that might need to be moved.

If any parent did not want his or her child to read something it was up to them to establish limits within their family and be with the child at the library. It was wrong for someone to force their own personal family values on others by deciding what other people‘s children should be able to read.

The final compromise of the Library Commission to the legislator‘s demand was far from a total seclusion of these books in a separate room. They would be placed on an easily findable shelf, but separated from other books. Instead of the desired effect of making them hard to find, these so called controversial books were made more easy to find because they were on a separate shelf in a section of the main library, and not mixed with other books where they would have blended in, like the enticing bawdy magazines being separated from sport and news magazines in a newspaper store are made easier to find.

Her greatest threat of withholding public funds from non-cooperating libraries was shot down in the state legislature, and the matter died.

All this in the opening years of the 21^st Century.

In a repeat of history but with some fine tuning, Missouri Republican Ben Baker has introduced legislation that could imprison librarians who allow youth to check out books on GLBT topicsand/or host a drag queen story hour.

Baker denies that his legislation would ban the books, but would merely make them hard to find or place them in a “restricted” area of the library, but h does admit he objects to the recent “drag queen story hour” trend where performers read age-appropriate books to children.

 “The main thing is, I want to be able to take my kids to a library and make sure they’re in a safe environment, and that they’re not gonna be exposed to something that is objectionable. Unfortunately, there are some libraries in the state of Missouri that have done this. And that’s a problem.”

Apparently, just like with Sally, publicly funded libraries are not for all the people who fund them.

“In some places they’ve had these drag queen story hours and that’s something that I take objection to and I think a lot of parents do. That’s where in a public space, our kids could be exposed to something that’s age-inappropriate. That’s what I’m trying to tackle.”

Like most special activities at libraries are advertised way in advance, no one is ambushed by them and anyone wanting to avoid them can. I lice two blocks from my city’s main library, and I avoid the place when there is a library-wide children’s activity day.

The proposed “Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act” would be made up of panels of parents who determine whether or not a book is “appropriate for children.” Public hearings would allow parents to object to any other books.

According to the representative’s plan, Libraries who do not move the books and restrict access would lose state funding and librarians could be fined $500 or imprisoned for up to a year.

The former was part of the first library case, the latter is a new twist.

The people involved with Drag Queen story hours, whether the reader or the parents, are taxpayers and it is their library too.

Sometimes police read a book. Sometimes a firefighter reads a book. Sometimes a clergy person will read a book. Some people have a problem with police, and some people don’t go to a library for religion.

Would there be a similar application restricting other taxpayers’ use of the library?