A local church is urging its members to permanently remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes.
Pamela Wilson Federspiel, who has been director of the library in downtown Shelbyville for 34 years, says the action is tantamount to “stealing.”
But three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville defend what they call an “act of civil disobedience.”
Civil disobedience is a peaceful way to protest unfair laws when the regular methods of changing the law are too restricted or too slow to protect the civil rights of citizens. Civil disobedience in this case would be refusing to check out or read books that they find objectionable, if the government were to mandate that they be read.
You could make the argument that government is mandating this content if public schools assign it to students, but there is no real punishment under the law for rejecting a school assignment. It’s that they don’t want YOU to have access to this information, which is the opposite of civil disobedience: oppression. If the government were to mandate the removal of this content, as these citizens would like, the act of disobedience would be to read the books.
This is stealing from a public library.
This is the best description I’ve seen yet. It’s censorship at best and criminal imho.