As Paul Harvey used to say… And now for the rest of the story!
Last month I wrote about how the Drag event at the Suffield Library was canceled well now the backstory has come out!
But now it is a different ballgame, the Republicans packed the library board.
Yeah, right. The “turf war” was a Republican bid to pack the board with their cronies. The Democrats were for inclusion while the Republicans are for exclusion. So they stuck in provision such as…
The nerve of the ALA to allow books on LGBTQ+ topics!
The CT Insider wrote last year that,
Last month I wrote about how the Drag event at the Suffield Library was canceled well now the backstory has come out!
Why this sudden change? The Town Council went from Democrat control to Republican control.Suffield library mired in turmoil*
Anti-LGBTQ agenda alleged in town amid multiple resignations, commission changes
The Hartford Courant
By Alison Cross
February 4, 2024Four months after a library director’s high-profile departure, the town of Suffield has yet to hire a new director, half of its library commission has been replaced, and the library’s associate director announced that she too will resign.
Kent Memorial Library Associate Director Kate Jarest said Feb. 10 will be her last day in Suffield. The resignation now leaves two major positions open at the town library after former KML Director Julie Styles resigned in October, alleging political pressure and overreach into library operations by the selectmen’s office.
For years, KML library, its commission and the board of selectmen have been embroiled in tensions that, according to some, largely center on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, namely those involving the LGBTQ+ community. Others contend that hostile attitudes and power struggles serve as the main source.
In an interview with the Courant, Moll said he disagrees with perceptions that construe past actions by the town and recent changes to the KMLC commission as attempts to appease a conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ base.
“They’ve been preaching it for two years that it’s this anti-LGBTQIA+ movement and it’s really not,” Moll said. “That’s the narrative they want to create and, you know, it’s just not true.”
After the election, one spot on the KMLC’s 12-member body was vacant. Six members – four Democrats, one unaffiliated and one Republican – were at the end of their terms. The Republican, Austin Roberts who served as chair of the commission chose not to pursue reappointment.
In a Dec. 6 decision by the board of selectmen that fell on party lines, the Republican majority voted to deny reappointments to all four Democrats, filling their spots and Roberts’ with five newly appointed Republicans. A separate vote instated Democrat James Irwin into the previously vacant position.
Critics described the overhaul as a scheme by the Board of Selectmen’s Republican majority to shape a library with more conservative and acquiescent leaders. Republican town officials said the decision was necessary to squash a “turf war” mentality.
During the public comment period at a Dec. 6 board meeting, Eric Harrington, chair of Suffield’s Board of Finance and the husband of Republican Selectwoman Kathleen Harrington, suggested that the town remove criteria that require library director applicants to hold a degree from a college accredited by the American Library Association. In the meeting, Harrington described the ALA as “a special interest group, led by a Marxist.”
“The whole idea that now someone else can choose what you or your kids can read. That’s just a scary thing to me,” Roberts said “As parents, we have a job and that’s our job to manage what our children need. It’s not the government’s and that’s what’s happening here. The government, the town government is trying to step in and control what we have access to. And I think that’s a dangerous precedent to set.”
Due to what she says was politics interfering with her job duties, and the rights of residents and library patrons, Kent Memorial Library director Julie Styles resigned from her position earlier this month.In a letter published Oct. 1 on the website of The Suffield Observer, Styles said "while I was hired to be a professional library director, I was not actually allowed to do my job as one."
"I have been instructed to run the library in ways that conflict with my professional ethics, experience, and training. So, it is time for me to move on," Styles said, adding that town officials directed library staff to remove certain books based on certain topics, in her opinion sending a message that some people who the books represent are not important.She also said in the letter that she was told to "tag all LGBTQIA+ books with warning labels, and to avoid putting up displays addressing current affairs or ones that represent marginalized communities, and to disregard patron privacy."
Which she refused to do on First Amendment grounds.
Yup, the Republicans want to tell you want to read, what to say, and what to think! And they call us groomers.
The only think that make Connecticut a Democrat state are the cities once you get our into the suburbs it is all red… just like the communist flag. Heck, my representative is a MAGA Republican.
*It appears that they changed the title of the article.
Censorship should not be selective.
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times ran an article on Sunday about a small town in Maine called Blue Hills whose library director was under attack for allowing the book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” by the journalist Abigail Shrier to stay on the shelves. The man lost many of his friends and was threatened. The book claims that gender dysphoria is a “diagnostic craze” fueled by adolescent confusion, social media and peer influence, and that teenagers are too young to undergo potentially irreversible gender transition surgery. The director stood his ground even though he was repulsed by the book and kept it on the shelves. I am amazed that it was the so called “left” who were asking that this book be removed when the right tries daily to remove our books. Is this our people falling for an eye for an eye, what’s good for the goose..
A library must be free and stay free for all books repulsive as any one of the books may be. So where do we stand on this? Do we only scream when our books are banned? What do we become then? I once wrote an article on the books that the fascists would ban and more than likely burn if they take over. Dangerous books. I certainly do not want to become one of them and join in the fun of flames.
I have to wonder why people in Ct. Pride or PFLAG or some of the other Gay INC. groups not holding symposiums on these ideas. The battle is raging and all they know is pizza nights, glitter, fluff, trinkets, socials, led by the nose of misleaders.
I cannot argue with you because you are right.
ReplyDeleteWe have to respect the 1st Amendment, we cannot just ban something because we don’t like their message, as long as they don’t call for violence.
But we can ban them from banning book because of protected classes such as religion, race, marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.