Protesters and counterprotesters on Thursday made their voices heard in the Milwaukee suburb of Hales Corners in a community battle over library books that feature LGBTQ+ themes.
Since August, a group of people have protested outside library board meetings with large signs referring to some of the library’s books as pornography and urging that the library’s director, Stephanie Lewin-Lane, be removed. They are affiliated with the national group Mass Resistance.
Outside the latest meeting, they were joined across the street by community members supporting the library’s decision to make the contested books available.
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Protesters with Mass Resistance accuse the librarian of putting inappropriate books in the library’s children’s section. The books they highlighted each dealt with LGBTQ+ themes and ranged from children’s to young adult genres.
Many of the books they object to were previously the subject of complaints elsewhere in Wisconsin and nationally. They include “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson, “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie H. Harris and “Let’s Talk About It” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan.
Most protesters declined to speak with WPR, saying they believed the news media would distort their views. An exception was Jim Donohoo of Greenfield, who brought a megaphone to the protest and approached the other side of the library’s driveway to engage with the dozens of counterprotesters.
Donohoo said though he has no children in nearby schools, he has 24 grandchildren and cares for their well-being. He argues that the books are sexualizing and grooming kids.
“We have these books in the library, obviously inappropriate for a 9-year-old, and yet, the position of this Hales Corners library is that if a 9-year-old comes up and wants to check this out … they will let him,” Donohoo said. “And the librarians know what’s in these books.”
He pointed out images from pages in one of the books describing it as pornography.
“The librarians, they’ll fight to the death to keep these books in the library,” Donohoo said. “They have an agenda, and the agenda is not the welfare of the children.”
Since 2020, the American Library Association has seen record increases in the number of banned and challenged books across the country. Most book challenges come from government entities or groups like Mass Resistance.
Jennifer Conrad-Proulx is a mother of four children who attend schools in the Whitnall District. She rallied the counterprotesters together to show their support for Lewin-Lane and the library.
“We are an LGBTQ family, and we support having LGBTQ resources within the library for our family and other families that are in this community, and to say that that is a sin or that we are pedophiles is just not what this community stands for in general,” Conrad-Proulx said.
Conrad-Proulx said her children go to the library every week and it has been a great resource for them.
Many counterprotesters argued it should be a parent’s choice whether or not their child can read LGBTQ+ books.
“Parents can decide whether or not those books are taken out on their children’s behalf, but sometimes those children just need resources as much as cis-gendered, straight families do,” Conrad-Proulx said.
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