In Michigan, Christian Fanatics Want to Defund Libraries

Public goods that serve everyone are under attack, a recurring story in America

When a wealthy suburban town votes to defund its own public library while continuing to fund other public amenities like road improvements and the fire department, you know something is deeply dysfunctional in America. But that’s exactly what just happened in Jamestown Township, a conservative community southwest of Grand Rapids, Michigan, after a small but vocal group of about 50 local residents started demanding this spring that the library remove books depicting LGBTQ people and same-sex relationships in a positive light.

According to Bridge, a nonprofit newsite that covers Michigan, the attacks got personal quickly. The director of the Patmos Library in Jamestown, Amber McLain, who is gay, was harassed online, forcing her to change her name on Facebook. In March, she told Bridge, “A woman came into the library filming on her cell phone. She said she was looking for ‘that pedophile librarian’ and ‘the freak with the pink hair,’” a reference to her. Soon afterwards, she quit.

“Libraries are for everyone, not just the majority,” McLain added. “When I was director at Patmos, there were just under 67,000 books. The removal of one may not seem like much, but when you…