Community members speak volumes about library books

In a place normally known for its quietude, many voices were heard Thursday afternoon in the Hayden Library when the Community Library Network board of trustees held its regular meeting.

The main topic of discussion for the nearly 20 people who spoke during the hourlong public comment session was library materials.

Many spoke about their concerns regarding obscenities, pornography and other materials they find inappropriate that children may have access to, while others spoke in support of the public library system, freedom of choice and the need for parents, not librarians, to monitor what children are checking out.

Emily Christopherson of Post Falls said a great community must have a great library. She said, at the last meeting of the library board, some called to defund libraries.

"There is a group who has been working hard to spread fear-based rhetoric and if they do not get their way, they will defund, or work to defund, the CLN," Christopherson said. "This selfish statement does nothing but punish this community we all love. This community depends on our libraries and its services."

She brought photo examples of recent library events and activities. She said to defund libraries would be to take away much-needed resources and support for local families, as well as free meeting space for various local clubs and organizations.

"It seems the end game is not just sterilizing the collection, but destroying libraries and the lives of people who work in our libraries," Christopherson said.

She said she and her family visit the library a few times a week and they have yet to encounter the kinds of books to which others were objecting.

"In fact, the only time I've been exposed to this so-called pornography is here, in these meetings," she said. "Sterilizing the library collection is not the answer to safety. Asking for more government overreach is not the answer. Why are the freedom-fighting patriots asking you, the government, this board, for more control? Do we want intellectual freedom, or more government control?"

Kara Claridge of Coeur d'Alene said she was in the Hayden Library with her daughters a few weeks ago and "was shocked at the books on display, not the least of which was a full solicitation into the occult."

"What parent sends their child to the library in hopes they will come home with a featured book on how to be a witch?" she asked. "At the very least you must be aware of the national outrage when parents find out what their children are reading."

She said it seems some board members have been swept away by the belief the First Amendment takes no consideration for children.

"If the introduction of same-sex attraction and drag queens is OK for young children, then why not promote kids drinking alcohol when they're 5, driving when they're 8 and getting married when they're 10?" she said.

Suzanne Kearney of Post Falls urged board members to place boundaries on sexual content in the youth section.

"Sex is like a fire," she said, adding that fire is warm and comforting when contained, but if it runs wild, it causes devastation and destruction.

"We don't give matches and lighter fluid to children for good reason," Kearney said.

She said she was raised in a family with lenient sexual boundaries and was exposed to pornography at a young age. Without maturity and experience to create her own healthy boundaries, Kearney said she developed an unhealthy and distorted perception of who she was as a sexual being, which led to a severe eating disorder.

"By God's providence, I was rescued by the saving grace of Jesus Christ, who showed me the truth about what healthy sexuality really was — a precious gift from God given to a husband and wife within the safe boundaries of the lifelong commitment of marriage," Kearney said.

She said pornography is addictive and can take hold early in children. She said based on selections she has looked at, she believes the library is grooming children by desensitizing them to sexual content.

"Please, respectfully consider putting healthy boundaries on the raging inferno that is sexual media in the young people's section," she said. "Protecting children is your responsibility."

Longtime Hayden resident Dr. Sara Morrow, who has homeschooled her children for eight years, expressed her appreciation for public libraries and how the library has been an invaluable resource for her family.

"As a child psychologist, I would like to validate everyone's concerns — there absolutely is a crisis in pediatric mental health unfolding, and as a professional in the field, I would like to reassure you it has nothing to do with the books in the library," she said. "There are far more powerful influences at play in the state of children's mental health."

She said it's a complicated era to be a parent, and that it is parents' sole responsibility to monitor their children's choices in the books they read, their behavior on the internet and social media, screen time and friends with whom they associate.

Morrow said it is a parent's job to enforce each family's values to teach and guide their children, and that she has huge concerns about the banning of books that could benefit other people.

"Humans are diverse, that is one of the strengths and beauties of human beings," she said. "To ban books is a violation of our basic freedoms. As an Idahoan, I have always so appreciated that we have this unspoken agreement: 'You do you, and let me do me.' That is being an Idahoan, and that is powerful freedom and liberty. To ban books is oppression; to empower one group's ideology at the disservice of everyone else is oppression."

The Community Library Network's current materials selection policy was approved Nov. 4. Interim Director Lindsey Miller-Escarfuller said the library network's material selection policy and procedures have been and continue to be in compliance with state and federal laws.

"No material in the library is intended to include content that impairs the ethical and moral development of youth and no material in the library has been declared obscene by a U.S. court of law,” she said. “Because of this, library materials have not been removed and changes have not been made to library operations in response to the adoption of the updated policy.”

The next regular meeting of the Community Library Network board will be from 2 to 5 p.m., Feb. 16, at the Post Falls Library, 821 N. Spokane St., Post Falls.