Photo: Cody Scanlan / Holland Sentinel / USA Today
JAMESTOWN TOWNSHIP, Michigan, August 18, 2022 ~ Patmos Library in Jamestown Township lost 84% of its operating budget when residents voted to cut funding to the facility, after library staff refused to remove books containing LGBTQ themes.
After the millage failed in the August Primary, the library board is putting a further-adjusted millage on the November ballot. Should this millage fail as well, the library is likely to shut down.
“They’re protesting all LGBTQ books that are on our shelves,” said Library Board President Larry Walton. “They want us to ban books, which is unacceptable. We, the board, will not ban the books.”
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August 18, 2022 ~ 760 WJR Senior News Analyst Marie Osborne talks to Paul W. about a battle over LGBTQ books could lead to closure of a West Michigan community’s only library.
Walton went on to say that out of nearly 67,000 materials at the library, only around 90 “could be relative to LGBTQ,” or 0.001 percent of the collection.
Christian group Jamestown Conservatives has planted signs throughout the township encouraging residents to vote against the millage.
“Our tax dollars should never be spent grooming children,” said Jamestown Township resident Donna Rotman at a board meeting. “The content in some of the books contains graphic sexual dialogue and narratives. No child has an innate sense of being genderqueer or gender fluid. It is manipulative, destructive, and wrong. A library that pushes this agenda is disrespectful.”
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