If you watched the recent Douglas County Commissioner Town Hall regarding Family Friendly Facilities, you probably recognized many of the people attempting to ban PrideFest in Castle Rock as the same people behind the current book ban campaign at Douglas County Libraries — all in the name of “protecting children’s innocence” and insisting that it’s not an attack against our LGBTQ community.
Once again, we’ve got the facts. We’ve obtained copies of all the appeals forms submitted to Douglas County Libraries this year. Reading the complaints makes it very clear that the book banners are specifically targeting materials with LGBTQ characters or themes:
Content Note: Please be advised that these forms contain anti-LGBTQ rhetoric before reading.
The appeals also reveal close ties to the national censorship movement. Many of the appeals reference BookLooks, a review website intended to help parents “find out what objectionable content may be in your child’s book before they do.” BookLooks launched in 2022 under the leadership of Moms For Liberty Florida member Emily Maikisch. Check out this Book Riot Article for the backstory on BookLooks.
On their About Page, BookLooks admits “We are not determining if a work, as a whole, is obscene, per the legal definition.” BookLooks also states “We do not support banning books… Any books that may be excluded from school libraries would still be available in public libraries or in stores for interested students to procure with parental consent.”
As we’ve discussed in a previous post, many of the books being challenged at Douglas County Libraries (a public library) are categorized as young adult nonfiction. DCL already shelves young adult nonfiction with the adult collection. DCL also provides parents with the option of a “Children’s Library Card,” which limits borrowers under the age of 15 from borrowing materials outside of the children’s collection.
These are the very compromises the book banners claim they would be satisfied with. Why, then, are they advancing the appeals to the Library Board of Trustees for a final decision on August 23rd? 🤨
Sign the petition and save the date for 5:30PM on Wednesday, August 23rd at the Parker Library. We don’t need Moms 4 Liberty in Florida telling us what we can or can’t read in Douglas County!
We need YOU to tell our trustees that libraries are for everyone in our community- straight, queer, cisgender, transgender, heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay. Everyone deserves to see past and future representatives of themselves in the library collection.
If protecting children is really our goal here, let’s protect all the children, not just the ones deemed appropriate for display.
Resident Comment, June Board Business Meeting
Douglas County FReadom Defenders 