Is pornography just in the eye of the beholder?

By: Joe Schaeffer | June 30, 2023 | Opinion

If you still doubt the thoroughness of the cultural Marxist “long march” through America’s institutions, let us introduce you to the American Library Association (ALA).

“During the Opening Keynote of the [ALA’s] recent Library 2.0 conference, Associate Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky Dr. Shannon M. Oltmann, Ph.D., and Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, Dr. Emily Knox, Ph.D. explain how pornographic books in public libraries and school libraries are subjective and not illegal,” journalist Haley Kennington wrote June 20 in a lengthy and informative thread of Twitter posts.

“Pornography does not equate to something that makes you uncomfortable … I don’t want people to get caught up in the definition of pornography,” Oltmann asserted. “Sometimes those things are really valuable to students or other patrons.” Another speaker emphasized that parents must be kept in the dark about these books. “Valerie Byrd Fort, Instructor, University of South Carolina, discusses how librarians should be sure to not label LGBTQ+ books as such to thwart certain groups from obtaining them,” Kennington reported. “In this group she specifically names parents.”

“It makes it too easy for parents or community members to find those kinds of books. Don’t make it necessarily easy for those groups to find,” Fort stated.

‘Social Justice’ Warriors at the Library

This has been going on for some time now. It seems many credentialed librarians across America are defending sexually explicit “literature” while actively attempting to prevent parents from intervening.

In September, Big League Politics reported that the ALA created a webpage that “included instructions for secretly pushing LGBTQ messaging onto children at public libraries.” The page was written by Maryland librarian Tess Goldwasser. “Once the public got wind of these indoctrination attempts, the webpage disappeared. But it can still be viewed via an archive link,” the news site noted. “The now-removed page was aimed at small-town librarians in rural, conservative areas. Primarily because these are areas with the most parental and community pushback for LGBT behavior promotion targeted at minors. Especially in schools.

“Do you work for a library in a small, rural, conservative community?” Goldwasser wrote. “Are you a frontline staff member there, with no managerial or administrative authority? Do you wish you could do more to make your library more inclusive to the LGBTQIA++ community, but meet with resistance? I hope it’s not just me!”

The ALA boasts of dating back to America’s founding yet apparently embraces the social mores of those working to topple the traditional values that helped make the United States a beacon of liberty for some 200-odd years.

“Founded on October 6, 1876 during the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the mission of ALA is ‘to provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all,’” the group declares on its website.

“On June 28, 2015, the ALA Council adopted a new Strategic Plan and the Association’s new strategic directions for the next three to five years,” the “About” page continues. “At the 2017 Midwinter Meeting, ALA Council approved a fourth direction on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. At their 2018 Fall meeting, the ALA Executive Board voted to affirm that ALA will apply a social justice framework to the ALA strategic directions.” The four strategic directions are advocacy, information policy, professional and leadership development, and equity, diversity and inclusion. The “advocacy” section features a category on “Banned and Challenged Books.”

“The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to defend each person’s right to read under the First Amendment and ensure free access to information. Every year, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools,” ALA writes.

Its “Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022” listing could easily be mistaken for satire. A book titled Gender Queer comes in at number one, followed by All Boys Aren’t Blue, a “memoir” penned by a black man growing up homosexual, and Flamer, a “graphic novel” about homosexuality aimed at teen boys.

Big Money, Big Media Are on the Team

You already have a good idea as to who is financing this cultural rot, but we’ll share the details anyway. A search of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation finds 18 grants to the ALA dating back to 2006, totaling over $35 million. The Gates Foundation has not funded ALA since September 2017, but it is clear what spurred the organization to make its full-throated pivot to “social justice” advocacy that very same year.

As always, big-box media have played their assigned role in promoting this well-organized agenda aimed at America’s schoolchildren. A September 2021 CBS News article heavily leaned on the ALA as an expert source in “reporting” on the “controversies” surrounding the banning of sexually explicit books in school libraries.

Logic and even rational argument are entirely absent:

“Deborah Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told CBS News there appears to be an organized effort to challenge books that deal with two broad topics: racism or black American history and the LGBTQ community.

“Stone said campaigns to ban books may be spreading more easily due to social media, and ALA has seen different people from different communities use the same language when arguing against books – a clue that they got the idea from someone else, possibly online.

“She said campaigns to ban books are usually a coordinated effort by activists targeting school boards.”

CBS News platformed a representative from a self-admitted radical activist organization who claims that a right to free speech that is so absolute that it must include allowing kids to have access to sexually explicit material is being threatened by grown adults getting information from the Internet. Think about that for a second. It bears repeating: The social and cultural attack on foundational American values is exceptionally well-organized, multi-dimensional, heavily financed, and in control of most leading credentialed institutions in the nation today.