A Wyoming county library board has cut ties with the American Library Association (ALA) over its support of books in the local library’s children’s section that promotes pedophilia and transgendering children, and includes detailed illustrations of sexual acts.
The Campbell County Library Board, located in Gillette, Wyoming, voted 4 to 1 to completely disassociate itself from the ALA after several months of public outcry over the availability of ALA-promoted books that many parents likened to porn.
The board voted that its local library “will no longer have any association” with ALA, will not accept any money from the organization, and will not use any taxpayer dollars to fund any events, material, or training linked to the ALA.
Some of the books that led to the vote included “Sex Is a Funny Word,” which ALA recommends for 8 to 11 year olds. The highly detailed, illustrated book includes discussions about masturbation.
The ALA did not respond to a request for comment.
Another book that drew outrage in Campbell County is “Trans Mission.”
It is a how-to book on how the author Alex Bertie went from transitioning from female to male and includes discussions about breast removal surgery and expediting the process by taking large doses of male hormones. Bertie also talks about his sexual desires for both genders.
Arthur Schaper, an advocate for the biological sexes with the conservative group MassResistance, told The Epoch Times, that exposing children to “sex books” is the ultimate in double standards.
“We don’t allow materials on things like how to build a bomb, how to cook meth, how to teach people how to commit suicide—that should and must be extended to prevent children from looking at damaging material,” he said.
The ALA has for years been defending its promotion of youth sex books in school libraries. In 2021, in response to what ALA described as “a dramatic uptick in book challenges and outright removal of books from libraries,” the organization posted a lengthy statement condemning what it called “acts of censorship and intimidation.”
It also ran a recent study that it says shows 67 percent of Americans oppose book censorship in school libraries. The study was based on a random polling of 1,000 voters and 472 parents on the issue, according to the ALA.
But parents were so outraged that they raised money for two billboards to warn the community about inappropriate books in the local school libraries.
In response, the Campbell County Board of Commissioners, which appoints the local library board, asked a state prosecutor to bring charges against library staff for permitting the obscene books in the children’s section of the local library.
However, the prosecutor ultimately determined that a law called the Obscenity Exemption Statute (OES) barred him from prosecuting them.
Last year, The Epoch Times reported on the existence of OES’s in 43 U.S. states and how they were being used by school librarians to keep sexually-explicit books on the shelves that would other be considered inappropriate for children.
Wyoming is one of several states trying to repeal the exemption laws, which were put in place in the 1960s under the teachings under the successful claim by famous sex therapist Albert Kinsey that children are sexual from birth.
In Virginia, Fairfax County parent Stacy Langton—who won national notoriety when her microphone was cut off at a school board meeting when she began reading from a book from her local school’s library about a boy’s homosexual exploits—also spearheaded legislation that would develop a rating system for books much like movies. Under the rating system, it would be illegal for “R” rated books to be in school libraries and children sections at public libraries.
Langton believes, however, that the ultimate fix is to repeal obscenity exemption laws.
“I think it’s the only thing that will drive a truck through this perverse agenda,” she told The Epoch Times.
Langton, Schaper, and others all say they believe the ALA is actually using books as a cover to promote a “radical LGBTQ agenda.”
In August, The Epoch Times ran a story about a website run by the ALA designed to teach librarians how to secretly promote pro-LGBT messaging. After the story ran, the ALA deleted the website.
A perusal of children’s sections at libraries show a substantial amount of LGBTQ books in sections intended for very young children.
In the affluent and predominantly Democratic community of Kennebunk, Maine, for example, The Epoch Times found several books promoting homosexuality and transgenderism among books for children as young as three years old. They included “My Moms Love Me,” “Different Kinds of Fruit,” and “Born Ready”: a story about a very young girl named Penelope who tells her mommy she thinks she’s really a boy.
The ALA also has heavy ties to Ohio businessman Steve Potash, founder of OverDrive, the world’s largest supplier of books and digital material to school and public libraries. The organization has a large cache of porn and sex books and also owns the app SORA, a controversial app being used in schools. The app provides access to a large inventory of sexually graphic material.
Potash, a former judge and columnist for the American Bar Association, provided the funding to ALA to start up a fundraising and advocacy arm of the ALA against book banning called UnitedAgainstBooksBans.
Potash and OverDrive did not respond to specific questions about the company’s ties to ALA. Instead, David Burleigh, OverDrive’s director of communications sent The Epoch Times the following statement.
“OverDrive is a longtime supporter of the American Library Association. As stated on the United Against Book Bans website, the funding for this initiative was provided not by OverDrive but by the Steve & Loree Potash Family Foundation and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation.”
The ALA arecently celebrated the financial support it receives from the federal government, tweeting on Nov. 23 that “new books and materials are coming” thanks to federal funding from The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
