Mardi Link: Public libraries are places of self-determination, not rhetoric

Oct. 9—By now you've likely heard the term "hybrid workplace," as employers try to adjust to workers' safety and mental health needs exacerbated by the pandemic, while also keeping sight of commerce and camaraderie.

Reporters are already good at this.

That's because stories readers find useful and important aren't developed only by sitting in a newsroom.

They're fleshed out while talking with a stranger in the checkout line at HomeGoods, by observing how a judge reacts to witness testimony during a preliminary hearing and — as I have been doing for several weeks now — by briefly relocating my workspace to the children's departments of several area public libraries.

This after a reader sent me an email describing how some in his community had accused staff at one northern Michigan library, of passing out gift bags to teens jam-packed with "propaganda furthering the homosexual agenda."

I admit, I was horrified by this news.

When I was a teen, I spent a LOT of time in Bay City's Sage Library, and never once was I presented with a gift bag.

But seriously, I'm an investigative reporter and I decided to investigate.

I began driving my movable office to tiny chairs and short tables from Alpena to Antrim County, where I'd quietly open my laptop and connect to the free WiFi.

First step — Googling, "What is the homosexual agenda?"

Second step — Learning this is a term leaders of the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as the authors of a Wikipedia entry and many, many area children's librarians, say is fake news.

Freedom for All Americans, a non-partisan anti-discrimination group, explains it this way: "Notions of a so-called 'homosexual agenda' are rhetorical inventions of anti-gay activists seeking to create a climate of fear by portraying the pursuit of equal opportunity for LGBT people as sinister."

In my travels I did hear discussions between patrons and librarians, and between the patrons themselves, inside the libraries I visited.

In one, a librarian recounted a parent requesting a particular title to read aloud to a 7-year-old girl: "The Phantom Tollbooth."

In another, a dad listened to his pre-school daughter explain how some dinosaurs ate plants and some dinosaurs ate other dinosaurs.

In a third, a homeschooling mom asked a children's librarian whether the library had any musical instruments her teenage son could check out.

The Charlevoix Public Library, like many of Michigan's public libraries, has a "Library of Things," which include items like snowshoes and sewing machines, also guitars. No underwater basket-weaving supplies that I'm aware of, but Charlevoix does have a waterproof ukulele! Who knew.

The "climate of fear" referenced by the Freedom for All group, however, is no joke.

The American Library Association says across the country small but vocal groups have bullied librarians, sometimes with threats of violence, or promises to cut off library funding, if books these officials deem objectionable aren't removed from the shelves.

Most of these books, ALA records show, have LGBTQ themes. Of the 10 most challenged books in the U.S. in 2021, half were challenged for LGBTQ content.

As recently as August, voters in Jamestown, just outside Grand Rapids, decided they'd rather defund the library, then keep books with LGBTQ themes on the shelves.

(A gofundme campaign raised every penny the library lost, and then some.)

In Emmet County's Bear Lake Township, some officials and residents upset with the availability of certain books at the Petoskey District Library, stopped short of asking for books to be removed, though did send a letter asking library staff to "not promote controversial books to our teens and young adults."

The ALA has begun compiling an annual list of book challenges in the U.S. In 2021, this included media reports of 729 challenges, directed at 1,597 books. Many came from parents and most, the association reported, targeting non-white or LGBTQ authors or subjects.

I sat with this statistic for bit, while listening to a gerbil get her steps in on an exercise wheel inside an enclosure near the check-out desk of a rural library.

Here's my take: Those who object to certain books being available for anyone to check out, have left off a word when they protest the library.

And that word is "public."

The freedom inherent in democracy means we have the right to make reading decisions for ourselves and our families. It does not mean we have the right to make decisions for other people and other people's families.

There's a pamphlet about this at the library. It contains some really good information on the First Amendment. The title? "Pocket Constitution of the United States."

The person who emailed me said he supports libraries, and wanted to draw my attention to a recent discussion at a township board meeting, where a resident complained about the gift bags, and the books they contained.

Some used profanity and some presented LGBTQ characters, and this resident said he didn't want that kind of stuff "shoved in his face."

I went looking for these books at the library discussed. Most were in the fiction section, on the second floor, eleven or so bookshelves away from the reference desk, shelved alphabetically and about at knee level.

Staring at their spines sitting there neatly on the shelves, I wondered whether this resident had a library card, and if so, whether he had read any of the books he was objecting to.

Libraries should be encouraged to stock books serving people in traditionally marginalized groups, including the LGBTQ community, long underrepresented in choices made by book publishers, book reviewers and bookstores.

The director of the Michigan Library Association recently co-authored an op-ed published by the Washington Post, along with Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, addressing this issue.

"Librarians are not trying to force your children to read material you don't want them to read," these Michiganders write. "They are fulfilling their role as information professionals tasked with upholding the constitutional promise of access to information for all.

In other words, trying to remove a book from a public library because you don't like it, or think you wouldn't like it if you read it amounts to censorship.

An action the U.S. Constitution finds — and here I'll employ a term overheard in a young adult section of a public library — totally cringe.

Email Senior Reporter Mardi Link at mlink@record-eagle.com.