Senators Slam American Library Association for Religious Discrimination

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - Three U.S. senators are demanding that the Marxist-led American Library Association be investigated and immediately defunded for violating the First Amendment.

On July 28, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., sent a letter to the Institute of Museum and Library Services urging it to investigate the ALA for blocking religious publishers from holding events in public libraries. The ALA receives federal funding through the IMLS. 

The letter was provoked by the ALA's recent effort to hinder Brave Books, a faith-based children's book publisher, from using public libraries for events that teach children traditional values and virtues. In particular, the senators discovered the ALA was issuing guidance on how to block Christian author Kirk Cameron by booking LGBT events on the same date. 

The senators urged IMLS director Crosby Kemper "to take swift action in light of [the ALA's] blatant discrimination" and demanded that "all current funds, as well as considerations for all future federal funds, to the ALA be immediately halted." 

The senators spoke to the ALA's double standard of promoting the leftist LGBT agenda even while suppressing alternative conservative views, writing: 

The ALA claims that Brave Books seeks to "censor LGBTQIA materials or disparage or silence LGBTQIA library users, [and] exploit the open nature of the library to advance their agenda." To the contrary, ALA is advancing a political agenda, not Brave Books. Further, the ALA is doing so while receiving federal funds and actively promoting hotly contested events in public libraries, including "Drag Queen Story Hours" — events aimed at having scantily and/or exotically clothed adults read to children with the goal of introducing them to sexualized topics. 

Library watchdog Dan Kleinman, who recently founded the World Library Association to replace the ALA, applauded the senators' missive. He told Church Militant:

It's about time the U.S. government is finally taking an interest in investigating ALA and its tax-exempt status. The American Library Association now openly promotes sexualizing children via its "Library Bill of Rights" and its promotion of Drag Story Hour. In 1971, ALA was defined in Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia as a benign organization dedicated to "improving library service, and encouraging the use of books and libraries." Those days are long gone. Now the ALA is the nation's leading sexualizer of children. Equity is its top goal, and as the U.S. Senators' letter shows, it is openly antagonistic to Christians.

Although Kleinman sees the senators' letter as a move in the right direction, he also issued a word of caution about it. "I hope the IMLS performs the investigation honestly and [the] ALA's tax-exempt status is revoked," the creator of the Safe Libraries blog said. "But don't hold your breath; the IMLS leader [Kemper] is, or was, a member of ALA, the very organization he has been called to investigate."

Other groups are also calling out the ALA and its drive to fill libraries with LGBT content for children. In June, CatholicVote, an organization dedicated to promoting the faith in public life, launched a "Hide the Pride" campaign targeting ALA's inroads in local libraries.

The Hide the Pride campaign, initiated in response "to the recent cries of concerned parents throughout the country," is twofold. It urged parents to use their library cards to check out harmful, sexually explicit books targeting minors, thus preventing them from falling into children's hands. It also recommended parents to mail letters to their local taxpayer-funded library protesting the graphically pornographic books on display in the children's section.

CatholicVote echoed Kleinman's sentiment regarding the ALA's mighty fall from grace: 

It's time for the American public libraries to once again be a respectful space for young children to freely explore great ideas that unite and inspire us all, rather than places where controversial and divisive new ideological movements are given free rein to promote their theories and policy positions about sexuality to children without the consent or notification of parents.

Church Militant has also reported on the growing number of states calling out the dangers of the American Library Association's promotion of the sexualization of children and its attack on traditional values. State representatives in Idaho, Mississippi and Montana, as well as others, are demanding the now Marxist-led organization be immediately defunded.

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