With so much else going on in the world, I managed to miss a very wise and responsible decision by the Wood County Board of Education to appoint Ms. Sonya Ashby to the Library Board. Ms. Ashby has the right temperament and judgment, as well as the right kind of background in public education, to make a terrific member of the board overseeing our public libraries.

Clearly, the same cannot be said of two candidates for the vacancy who were not chosen: Chad Conley and Sean Keefe. To quote from a News & Sentinel piece covering the events surrounding the BOE’s decision, “During public delegation Chad Conley and Sean Keefe expressed that they did not agree with the board’s appointment to the library board. ‘You are all basically pedophiles by proxy,’ Conley said. He said he officially resigned his position as a substitute teacher. Keefe said the board may be ‘useless idiots or malevolent accessories’ to what he described as ‘the destruction of our youth.’ ‘Either way, not one of you deserve the seat you currently occupy,’ Keefe said. ‘And if I were you, I’d bone up on my knowledge of millstones.'”

I certainly breathed a sigh of relief to learn that someone like Conley would no longer be a substitute teacher in our schools, if he made good on that promise to resign. More importantly, though, Conley’s and Keefe’s remarks are not protected speech by any stretch of the imagination. If you are going to call someone a pedophile by proxy, you’d better have the evidence to back up that they have either committed pedophilia or knowingly allowed it to be committed without acting to prevent or punish it.

Also, threats like “you’d better bone up on your knowledge of millstones,” an allusion to a biblical passage wherein Jesus says that it would be better for someone to have a millstone tied around their neck and tossed into the sea than to hurt one of these little ones (a reference, many believe, to harming children), are not protected by the First Amendment’s free speech clause. If I were the members of the BOE or Ms. Ashby herself–the insinuation being that by appointing Ms. Ashby to the library board, the BOE has wantonly endangered children–I’d be speaking with attorneys. I know board member Justin Raber is an attorney himself so hopefully this is being addressed.

This culture wars obsession with pedophilia and “protecting the children” is bizarre, but not new. The political right loves a good shock and awe campaign. Libraries are bastions of free thought that are accessible to all on the public dime. This has always made them a prime target, even in an Information Age like today with the internet and smart devices when print can comfortably be described as dead.

You want to censor what your children access in a public library or at school? Go to the library with them and enroll them in private schools in keeping with your worldview or homeschool them. Our tax dollars shouldn’t be used for your private schools and homeschooling, but I digress. This community roundly rejected the extremists who supported Parkersburg City Council’s asinine effort to censure the libraries and who tried to defeat school and library levies. This community went on to give approximately $10,000 to the libraries during the 2023 Give Local MOV event. The will of the majority has been done.

The LGBTQ+ community not only exists but exists proudly in the Mid-Ohio Valley, where not one but two popular and extremely well-attended pride events take place every year; and where everyone in attendance gets a good laugh at the troglodyte with the megaphone shouting hate from the periphery. These LGBTQ+ folks are not going anywhere and neither are those of us who proudly support them and show them the love and acceptance they deserve.

I commend the members of the Wood County BOE for their choice of Ms. Ashby and wish Ms. Ashby luck and success as a member of the board.