Op-ed: Attacks on books reveal true agenda of far right
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I guess it was only a matter of time until the right-wing hysterics about books made available in public libraries and public schools reached Parkersburg City Council. At this week's City Council meeting, Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl expressed that she will not vote for a continuing levy for the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library system because a 2019 memoir titled "Gender Queer" has been displayed at the library and contains graphics considered sexually explicit.
I find this obsession with gender and sexuality among Republicans and others on the political right ridiculous, to say the least. An author's exploration of life as a queer person is considered by folks like Kuhl to be pornographic or perverse, yet they all-too-happily support a former President whose public speeches have included mockery of those with disabilities and labeling all Southern border migrants rapists and drug dealers. Trump has made headlines for paying off a porn star with whom he had an affair on his pregnant wife and audio of Trump was made public wherein he laughed about sexual assault, expressing his enjoyment of grabbing women by their genitalia. These folks want a man like this in the White House and would gladly allow their children and grandchildren around him, but a book on a library shelf is a dire threat.
I've regularly utilized our public library system for years and am very familiar with the books and other materials available at the library at any given time. I've certainly found material there with which I vehemently disagree and find offense. The difference is that you won't catch me calling for such material to be removed from the library or voting to deprive the library of much-needed funding because it's there. I support the freedom of others with a library card to access these books and materials for free at their leisure.
But these folks aren't particularly interested in the survival of democracy and a free and open democratic society. They like to talk about our government's structure as a republic and how the principle of "one person, one vote" doesn't really apply and how the U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee the right to vote. They express pride in the anti-democratic features of our constitution like the Electoral College and the structure of the U.S. Senate with two senators per state regardless of population size and the right of state legislatures to redraw congressional districts after every census. Their loudest voices and thought leaders like Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson now sport the label Christian nationalist with pride, openly endorsing Christian theocracy in this country.
Anything that threatens the white supremacist, evangelical Protestant and conservative Catholic, cis and heteronormative, patriarchal power structure that has existed in this country since its inception cannot be tolerated; whether it's teaching complete and accurate history about race and its impacts on our society, culture and economy today, or bringing LGBTQ+ lives and issues to the fore in the public sphere.
My co-plaintiff and I had to sue the city for three-and-a-half years at a cost to the city of $60,000 just to get City Council to stop engaging in a blatantly unconstitutional prayer invocation practice at public meetings. People still show up to recite a uniquely Christian prayer from the audience every meeting because they just can't accept that people of other faiths, and no faith at all, are also citizens of this community and shouldn't have to sit through Christian recitations to engage with their local government.
If you don't want your minor children accessing a book on the shelf in the library, then do the same thing you presumably do with their internet and TV access and their peer groups and monitor their exposure. If you are adamantly opposed to certain public school curricula, pay to send your child or children to a private school that's in line with your values or pay to homeschool them. These options are far fairer and more effective than storming board of education and library board meetings to infringe on the freedoms of others.