The Washington Post thought it was a “national” story about what the Left calls “book bans.” Reporter Daniel Wu began:
The top librarian in Rutherford County, Tennessee, was fired this week for refusing to move over 130 books with LGBTQ+ themes to the system’s adult section, capping months of tumult that made the suburban county the latest frontline in a national debate over access to books about queer and transgender people.
The county board near Nashville voted 8-3 to fire library director Luanne James in a spirited meeting Monday in which supporters and detractors of James spoke on her stance to applause and jeers.
“All I’m going to say is that I stand by my decision,” James said at the board meeting before her firing. “I will not change my mind.”
Much of the audience at the board meeting broke into cheers and applause after her statement. Chants of “shame” were heard as board members voted to fire James.
That refusal made James a “hero” to the Bluesky Brigade, and they’re all raising funds to throw at her for her “courage.”
Even that move of books to the adults section is conditional — children can still access books in the adults section with parental approval. So if you’re a liberal parent with a gender-bending child, the access remains. Wu was very generic about the content:
The books flagged by the library board included children’s comics with transgender characters and books about trans activists, according to a list obtained by The Washington Post. Books were also flagged for containing “partially unclothed” people, “female empowerment discussions,” “social-justice concepts” and a “gay couple” among other topics, according to the list.
Leif LeMahieu at the Daily Wire provided what Wu and the Post would not — specifics on what books were moved.
Books the board directed moved to the adult section included “The Gender Wheel,” “Who Are You? The Kids Guide to Gender Identity,” and “When Aidan Became A Brother” — a picture book about a gender-confused girl who started identifying as a boy.
“Librarians should not be used as a filter for political agendas,” James said. This can be a comical claim, since librarians are the ones who serve as the political and cultural filters for which books are placed on the shelves, and which books are excluded. So are “transphobic” books made available, like Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters? Liberal reporters don’t ask. They presume such “harmful” material is left out.
Conservative opinion was barely included in this story. It was limited to little bites:
One commenter supporting the library board called James “evil” and said reclassifying the books was needed to “protect children.”
Predictably, the left wasn’t identified by ideology, and their lobbies are just “free expression advocates.”
Kasey Meehan, the Freedom to Read director at free-expression advocacy group PEN America, said James “really stood very principled for intellectual freedom, for ensuring young people have the right to see themselves, for ensuring access to LGBT+ books.”
“[It’s] truly emblematic of both how censorship battles are showing up across the country in public schools and public libraries,” she added. “And also how people are risking jobs and their own financial security to hold the line.”
The “Democracy Dies in Darkness” newspaper doesn’t really want to feature a debate on so-called “book bans” when someone wants to criticize content selections at publicly funded libraries, any more than you can protest “Drag Queen Story Hours” they host.
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