by Kurt Mahlburg
Local libraries have become a fierce battleground in the cultural revolution sweeping America.
“Drag Queen Story Hour” and the promotion of pornographic materials in children and teens sections have prompted parents around the nation to push back—and some families to withdraw entirely.
In fact, last week saw an entire state withdraw.
The Montana State Library Commission voted to cut all ties with the American Library Association (ALA), citing as its primary concern the national body’s newly elected Marxist president.
Voting 5–1 with one member abstaining, the commission approved a letter to be sent to the ALA that states, “Our oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist.”
As the oldest and largest library association in the world with over 50,000 members, the ALA has been lurching leftward for decades, a fact no longer able to be disguised when it elected a self-described “Marxist lesbian” as its new president last April.
Beginning her role this month, Emily Drabinski has since deleted the revealing tweet in which she congratulated herself on the appointment and advertised her radical politics.
“I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary,” she boasted in the tweet, still accessible via the Wayback Machine. “I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!”
Montana libraries Commissioner Tom Burnett read out Drabinski’s fateful tweet when he first called for a special session to discuss Montana libraries’ ties to the ALA.
BREAKING: The Montana State Library Commission just officially voted to break all ties with the American Library Association over the fact that they elected a self described "marxist lesbian" as their president.
They are the first state to separate from the ALA. pic.twitter.com/AS77PQ4eN6
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 11, 2023
It is a long way to fall for the ALA, whose first president was Justin Winsor (1831–1897), a cartographer, librarian, careful historian, and genealogist. Winsor was a student and writer of American history, and he proudly proclaimed being a descendent of Mayflower passengers.
These days, the ALA is apparently more interested in radical queer politics. The national library body has given awards and accolades to GLSEN (formerly the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network), which has promoted LGBT propaganda in schools nationwide.
In campaigning for the role of ALA president, Emily Drabinski made no secret of her Marxist platform in a blurb she has also since wiped from the internet:
So many of us find ourselves at the ends of our worlds. The consequences of decades of unchecked climate change, class war, white supremacy, and imperialism have led us here. If we want a world that includes public goods like the library, we must organize our collective power and wield it.
Or to quote Karl Marx himself, “All that is solid melts into air,” and “Workers of the world, unite!”
Drabinski has openly promoted pornographic books, including Gender Queer, which includes sexually explicit illustrations, and Flamer, which depict sex acts between teen boys.
The latter Drabinski tweeted about on July 4th this year:
https://twitter.com/edrabinski/status/1676197732375986176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1676197732375986176%7Ctwgr%5E05099e69565a06cc0e2854adaca9bcb6ac3da6ae%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fintellectualtakeout.org%2F2023%2F07%2Fmontana-leaves-marxist-led-american-library-association%2F
While rainbow activists like Drabinski have claimed they are victims of a nationwide conservative “book banning” campaign, the ALA has had no qualms in trying to prevent book readings at its libraries by Christian children’s authors like Kirk Cameron.
Book banning for me but not for thee.
Montana is the first state to quit the ALA but not the first association to jump ship.
The Campbell County Public Library Board based in Gillette, Wyoming, cut ties with the ALA in October 2022 and also divorced itself from the Wyoming Library Association (which has retained ALA membership).
Which state is next to leave the library association is anyone’s guess. Perhaps this fight for better libraries will soon be coming to a state near you.
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Kurt Mahlburg is an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adults pastor. Since 2018, Kurt has been the Research and Features Editor at the Canberra Declaration. He is also a freelance writer and a regular contributor at Mercator, the Spectator Australia, Caldron Pool, and Intellectual Takeout. He is married to Angie, who hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
