Stopping Library Boards from Sexualizing Minors
Part 7 of a series on leftist indoctrination in taxpayer funded institutions
For decades city and county officials could assume everything was going fine at the local library as long as the facility looked nice and there were plenty of books. They can’t make that assumption anymore.
If they choose to exercise it, local governments have a lot of power to stop libraries from being a tool of leftist indoctrination, especially transgender indoctrination and the sexualization of minors.
What do city and county officials have to do with libraries? Mayors and county judges appoint board members to their library boards. The mayor appoints the members of city libraries; county judges appoint the members of county libraries; and in places where a library is run as a joint venture among two or more local governments, the appointments are made by the mayors and county judges who participate.
In many places, Aldermen and County Quorum Court members are involved in the local library because the city or county provides financial support for the library. The financial support may mean approving a budget item in the city or county budget to transferring money to the library, or it may be in the passage of a sales tax that dedicates a percentage of the tax proceeds to the library. This local support is in addition to the library’s millage tax (property tax) approved by the voters.
With library board members being appointed by mayors and county judges and financial support coming from cities and counties, this gives local governments the power to influence library policy.
Nobody noticed what was going on in libraries in our state until the Fayetteville Library decided to host a back-to-school event that included a drag show for children and promised transgender resources, including: how to change your name, clothes from the “Transition Closet”, connections to schoolteachers for gender identity support, and assistance with a gender identity plan. Plus, the only adults at the event would be the event sponsors and their team.
It’s not about accepting lifestyles. It’s about indoctrinating and sexualizing children.
Public outcry caused the library board to cancel the event for the safety of the children. However, the canceled drag show is not the beginning or end of the Fayetteville Library’s effort to push transgender identity on children. In June the Fayetteville Library held “Teen Pride Bingo” for Grades 5–12 which encouraged the children to “Pick up a Pride Month bingo card to earn prizes!” So watch for future efforts by the library because the Fayetteville Library Board still is a member of the TRUE Northwest Arkansas Train Cohort which, under the broad banner of diversity, pushes gender identity on minors.
It is not just the Fayetteville Library that has gone off the rails and are now pushing gender identity on minors. The Central Library System, for example, has so much money from the radical left that they have gone from being a library to pushing leftist indoctrination of minors through programs such as their “Make Your Own Pronoun Pins” and “LGBTQ+ Teens: Know Your Rights.”
Now that city and county officials are aware that their libraries can be hijacked by the left for sexual grooming of minors, they can no longer sit idly by. They are either “For” or “Against” such programs.
Ask candidates for mayor, alderman, county judge, and quorum court (JP’s) to go on record on what they would do:
- Will the mayor and county judge candidates promise to only appoint people to the library board who will protect minors against such grooming and to ask for the resignation of any library board member who refuses to protect the minors?
- Will candidates for mayor, alderman, county judges and quorum court members go on record as promising to put strings on their funds to libraries so that the funds will be withheld if the library board engages in programs to sexualize minors?
Speaking of library funding, yes, it is true the property tax levied for libraries can be put on the ballot for repeal with only a petition of 100 voters. However, that action would be extreme and does not specifically target the issue. (AR Const Amendment 30[i] and 38[ii])
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Although the focus here is on libraries, we want to remind you–
- Ask your candidates for school board, and
- Ask your candidates for governor and for the Arkansas state legislature,
“Where do you stand on stopping the transgender indoctrination of minors in both libraries and schools?”
[i] Arkansas Constitution Amendment 30
- 3. Raising, reducing or abolishing tax — Petition and election.
Whenever 100 or more taxpaying electors of any city having a library tax in force shall file a petition with the Mayor asking that such tax be raised, reduced or abolished, the question shall be submitted to the qualified electors at a general or special election. Such petition must be filed at least thirty days prior to the election at which it will be submitted to the voters. The ballot shall follow, as far as practicable, the form set forth in Section 1 hereof. The result shall be certified and proclaimed, as provided in Section 2 hereof, and the result as proclaimed shall be conclusive unless attacked in the courts within thirty days. Subject to the limitations of Section 5(e) hereof, the tax shall be lowered, raised or abolished, as the case may be, according to the majority of the qualified electors voting on the question of such election. If lowered or raised, the revised tax shall thereafter be continually levied and collected and the proceeds used in the manner and for the purposes as provided in Section 2 hereof. [As amended by Const. Amend. 72, § 2.]
[ii] Arkansas Constitution Amendment 38
- 3. Raising, reducing or abolishing tax — Petition and election.
Whenever 100 or more taxpaying electors of any county having library tax in force shall file a petition in the County Court asking that such tax be raised, reduced or abolished, the question shall be submitted to the qualified electors at a general or special election. Such petition must be filed at least thirty days prior to the election at which it will be submitted to the voters. The ballot shall follow, as far as practicable, the form set forth in Section 1 hereof. The result shall be certified and entered of record as provided in Section 2 hereof, and the result as entered of record shall be conclusive unless attacked in the courts within thirty days. Subject to the limitations of Section 5(e) hereof, the tax shall be lowered, raised or abolished, as the case may be, according to the majority of qualified electors voting on the question at such election. If lowered or raised, the revised tax shall thereafter be continually levied and collected and proceeds used in the manner and for the purposes as provided in Section 2 hereof. [As amended by Const. Amend. 72, § 5.]
