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A book targeting kids 14-17 years old that offers gay sex apps advice, saunas and sex parties details and the ins and outs of gay sex remains available to anyone regardless of age at the Britt Public Library.
“This Book Is Gay” was retained by the board through a 6-0 vote in September despite grooming efforts by the book, undermining people of faith, instruction on “chemsex” where people mix drugs and sex, how to use dating apps and how easy it is to meet up with other homosexuals in the app, and an entire chapter on “The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex.”
While board member Cassie Burrs Collins wasn’t present at the meeting when the vote was held, Mike Matern, Ruth Thill, Kristi Gast, Mark Jamtgaard, Judy Brumm and Shirley Marchand all voted in favor of keeping the book with no restrictions.
According to city attorney Earl Hill, the book was “dropped off” at the library eight years ago and had been checked out twice. According to Amazon, it is targeted at children 14-17 years old.
On Sept. 12, Jim Nelson filed a challenge to the book, calling it “pornographic” and said only adults should be able to read it.
“I really see no need for it at all,” Nelson wrote in his challenge.
Nelson, who is also the mayor of Britt, wrote he believes the purpose of the book is to “introduce deviant sex and lifestyles to young people.”
The form also asked what the challenger believes may be the result of reading the book.
“If you believe it, it would result in throwing out God’s intentions and purposes of sex and procreation,” he wrote.
Less than one week after receiving the challenge, the Britt Library Board held a discussion at its regular meeting about the book and voted 6-0 to keep the 272-page book.
At Wednesday night’s board meeting, the members were given a copy of a letter from a person referred to as Mr. Johnson by librarian Linda Friedow. Board members said they believed the letter was “bullying” and “threatening.”
The letter was addressed to Friedow and the board. Johnson wrote the letter urging the board to reconsider their vote to keep the book.
Johnson’s letter asked what purpose a book with the following topics fulfills in the town’s public library:
*Glory holes: A glory hole is a hole in a wall or partition, often between public lavatory cubicles or sex video arcade booths and lounges, for people to engage in sexual activity or to observe the person on the opposite side. Glory holes are especially associated with gay male culture and anal or oral sex.
*Rimming: Oral and anal sex act in which one person stimulates the anus of another by using their tongue or lips.
*Eating Scat: Scat is an alternate term for feces, particularly of wild carnivores.
*Golden showers: a slang term for the practice of urinating on another person for sexual pleasure.
“You were placed on this board because we believed your moral standards would be a gatekeeper for the public use of the library,” the letter states. “It’s time you lived up to those moral standards.”
The letter goes on to say that Johnson could have the following 4×8 foot double-sided banner made, which he would place in the back of his pickup and park in front of the library:
“You all can explain to the general public why you have porn on the shelf when you see them in the grocery store, school functions or church,” the letter states.
In closing, Johnson cautioned funding for the library at the city and county level could be impacted by the Britt Library keeping the book on the shelf.
The board discussed the letter.
“It’s almost like a threat,” one of the women on the board said.
“It is very definitely a threat,” another replied.
The board members didn’t have anything identifying themselves in their spots during the meeting and when one was asked for their name after the meeting, they said they weren’t sure any of them wanted to be identified individually.
“To me, it appears that he is being a bully,” Thill said. “And he’s trying to bully people into his point of view.”
The board members said every time attention is given to the book, it results in people checking it out of curiosity.
“He is not helping any situation,” Thill said.
Jamtgaard said that Johnson is welcome to express his opinion, “but he’s not welcome to make threats.”
“Not like this, a sign that’s got all of our names on it,” said one of the women on the board.
“That’s the bully side,” Thill said. “I will intimidate you into doing what I want you to do, that’s a bully. And you can quote me on that, thank you very much.”
Thill said if Johnson wants to put the sign on his property that’s one thing, but she doesn’t think he’s allowed to put it on someone else’s property.
The librarian said the letter would be referred to the city attorney.
Burrs Collins said she thinks it is “idle threats.”
“I would say that we already have voted on this or passed it,” she said. “If they have that big of an issue with the material they should have argued that in a more effective way because it’s not done very well. I don’t necessarily agree, having the book here, but it’s not argued very well at all.”
Burrs Collins said the decision is already done and the board cannot do anything about it. The Iowa Standard asked another board member about this statement and was told since the board voted to keep the book, it can’t be removed for 10 years per the Britt Library bylaws.
We then asked who has the power to change the bylaws and the answer was – the Britt Library Board.
We asked Burrs Collins what she thought the challenge was missing.
“I think that if a book is challenged thoroughly enough that someone should read it and do their research on it,” she said. “I think to do a very good challenge, you should know what you’re challenging.”
Since Burrs Collins said she doesn’t “necessarily agree, having the book (in the library),” we asked if it is fair to say she would have voted against keeping it.
“Uh, no, that’s not fair,” she said.
We asked for clarification, saying “So you’re not comfortable with it here but you would have voted for it to stay here.”
“I think that I can just not answer that question and that’s fine,” Burrs Collins said.
Seeing as Burrs Collins said if a book is going to be challenged, someone should read it and do their research on it, we asked if she or any of the three remaining board members who were still there had read the book before voting to keep it.
“No comment,” one replied.
None of them said they read the book before voting to keep it. However, Mike Matern and Jamtgaard had already left and Kristi Gast was not present at the meeting. So it’s possible at least one, two or three board members read the book prior to voting to keep it, but it’s not possible a majority did.
“I will say that I would have read the book,” Thill said. “But it was already checked out because the publicity had been so big that people had come in to check it out. So I couldn’t even read it because it was out.”
The Iowa Standard asked Thill if she voted to keep the book before she read it.
“Yes,” she said, after a long pause.
Thill had criticized “most of the people” bringing attention to the book because, in her words, they hadn’t read the real book.
“They had read information that they were told was in the real book,” Thill said. “But that’s, to me, that is not the same as reading a book.”
We asked Friedow if anything would prevent a child from checking out the book. She said if a parent tells the library they don’t want their child checking out a certain item, then the child cannot check out a certain item.
We asked Friedow if the book would be checked out to a child with no questions asked.
“If we didn’t have the book and someone came in and asked for it we would borrow it from another library for them,” she said. “That’s the way the system works.”
We followed up, asking “So it would be checked out to a child, no questions asked.”
“I didn’t say that, you said that,” Friedow said. “I’m not answering the rest of that question.”
We asked if there’s a policy stating a parent has to approve of such a book being checked out by a child.
“There is not a policy that says a parent must approve the books their children check out,” she said. “That’s a parent’s job.”
We sought clarification, asking if there was anything that would prevent a child from coming in, grabbing the book and checking it out as long as they have a library card.
“That’s probably true,” Friedow said.
There will be an opinion piece about this topic later. I was able to engage in a great, healthy conversation with Thill and Friedow for quite a while after the meeting. Saturday’s email newsletter will contain some of that information. Send me your email address and I’ll get you signed up for the newsletter ([email protected]). Or you can sign up here.
