American Library Association: Not Child Friendly

When you think of the American Library Association (ALA), you likely think of a library building with endlessly long, towering bookshelves, rows of tables and chairs, reading nooks in corners, and signs reminding patrons to speak only in hushed tones. You might even conjure up an image of a librarian with a quintessential bun in her hair, eyeglasses perched precipitously on the edge of her nose buried in a book of her own. 

The ALA of 2023, though, is not the ALA of years ago.  Emily Drabinski, a self-proclaimed “Marxist lesbian” and current president of the ALA, is unapologetic in her intention to use her position and power to destroy capitalism, destroy the family, and subvert Christianity.  She lays out her mission to radicalize libraries and introduce children to perversion in an article entitled, “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction.”  (In this same article, she accuses the Dewey Decimal System of being “too friendly to Christians.” 

As well, the libraries and librarians of today look little like those of the past. Innocuous “Please Be Quiet” signs and American flags have been replaced by “Safe Zone” and “You Are Welcome Here” posters accompanied by gay pride flags.  Your new librarian is never without her rainbow lanyard and “ally” pin. She works overtime stocking the young adult section with books on gender, sex, and race. On Martin Luther King’s Day, you are more likely to find titles like, How to be an Antiracist and White Fragility showcased in the nonfiction section than any works by or on King himself.  Yesterday’s books chronicling the adventures and travails of youth have been replaced with titles like, This Book Is Gay and Gender Queer. Deemed “gender-affirming,” these books are protected from all normal scrutiny, entombed on the shelves by your new, activist librarian. Any concern raised is quickly and decisively silenced with accusations of “hate” and “homophobia.” 

When it comes to presenting sexual or violent material to minors, there are things that essentially everyone thinks are unacceptable. Virtually no one thinks schools and libraries should carry Playboy or Hustler, and just about everyone thinks it’s fine for them to carry Romeo and Juliet despite its lyrical allusions to sex. But what about an illustrated depiction of a protagonist using a dildo during sex with her girlfriend? This is what you find in the graphic memoir Gender Queer. Or how-to instructions on using dating apps to meet strangers for intercourse—This Book is Gay. How about a discussion between teenage girls about whether to “spit or swallow” after performing oral sex—Beach Read. Graphic depictions of rape and incest—All Boys Aren’t Blue. Drawings of children masturbating and adults having sex—It’s Perfectly Normal. And, last but not least, graphically illustrated instructions on masturbation, sex, and sex toys including anal plugs, sexting, and pornography—Let’s Talk About It. 

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, advocates for “sustained messaging that reframes this issue, that takes it away from the idea that these are inappropriate for minors, or sexually inappropriate for minors, and promote them as diverse materials and programming that are about inclusion.” Why reframe obscene material as “diverse” or “inclusive?”  Emily Drabinski recently declared “public education needs to be a site of socialist organizing [and] I think libraries really do too … We need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing.”  A century ago, Marxists pursued a strategy of leveraging sex education to break familial bonds and refashion society. It should not be lost on us today that America’s most prominent sex education organization—The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States—advances sex education as a vehicle for social change. 

The welfare of children must come first. Any pandering to gender ideology must be called out for what it is: child abuse. The Center for Garden State Families is calling on all school boards to disassociate and remove membership from the American Library Association. Public libraries, which also receive tax-payer funds, should also disassociate and remove their membership from the American Library Association. 

This November 7th, the Center for Garden State Families urges you to vote.