Left-Wing Mob Tries to Intimidate HEPL Board

A small group of left-wing activists increasingly threaten the library board and push for porn and erotic novels to stay in the youth section. But the voters will prevail.

On July 27, a man was arrested at the Hamilton East Public Library Board Meeting and the meeting had to be concluded early when the angry left-wing activists in the audience wouldn’t stop yelling at the board. These activists have been pushing hard for porn and erotic novels to stay in the youth sections of the library rather than being moved to the adult section, and now that they aren’t getting their way, they continue to turn up the heat and behave in an increasingly threatening manner. In this context, local blogger Larry Lannan has called for people to “find a way to lower the temperature” so that “cooler heads will prevail.” Others, such as Democrat Councilwoman Jocelyn Vare and local left-leaning activist Bradley Jones apparently agree with this sentiment, calling for compromise. I suspect that these people are being disingenuous, but let’s consider the idea anyway.

The first point we need to appreciate is that these folks were utterly repudiated in the last election. Specifically, the woke candidates for HSE school board who were vocal in favor of keeping porn and erotic novels in the youth section of HEPL lost the election by an average of about 18 points, partly owing to their position on these matters. And Democrat City Councilor Jocelyn Vare, who has repeatedly advocated that books not be moved, lost her bid for state senator by nearly eleven points last November:

Given these decisive electoral losses, the small group of activists who attend the HEPL Board meetings to yell at the board members should recognize that they are part of a clear minority among voters in our community, and they should stop baselessly claiming to represent a majority. The fact that a few dozen of them faithfully attend the long and boring HEPL Board meetings so they can yell at the board members simply does not show anything about the will of the public, which, in a democracy, is expressed at the polls.

That said, what would compromise look like?

To begin with, it is important to get the facts straight, since the history of the present dispute is important context that serves as an excellent test of whether the alleged compromisers are honest. So let’s remember that this whole dispute started with a focus on two books: Let’s Talk About It by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan, and A Quick & Easy Guide to Consent by Isabella Rotman. The first of these two books was written by a self-described pervert, it contains explicit pornographic images, it encourages children to consume pornography, and it also encourages them to talk to strangers online about kinky sex, contrary to the advice of local and federal law enforcement. You can see more here (beware of explicit images), and here’s the page that violates police guidelines:

The previous HEPL lawyer deemed this book “objectively harmful to children.”

The second of these books encourages minors to consider whether they’d be interested in sending nude pictures of themselves to others, which is a felony in Indiana. It also asks minors to consider trying group sex, vibrating butt-plugs, strap-ons, bondage, floggers, whips, blindfolds, and anal sex (among other things!):

Remember, this was shelved in the section for eleven-year-old children. This is the kind of material that “my side” is concerned about. Sometimes it feels as if the left-wing activists at HEPL meetings are unaware of the facts about these two books. So my first question for the alleged moderates is whether they can acknowledge the basic facts about these examples:

Can you acknowledge that one of these books contains pornographic images, that both books encourage children to consider mature sexual activities and violate law enforcement guidelines, and that one of the books encourages children to consider committing a felony?

If you cannot acknowledge these facts, then in my view you are not serious about finding common ground. I believe your candidates will continue to decisively lose elections, despite your constant agitating and posturing as if you were in a majority. So this is the starting point for compromise: you have to acknowledge the facts.

My next questions have to do with HEPL Director Edra Waterman. She initially dragged her feet for weeks on this issue, finally issuing an official decision to leave the books exactly where they were, in the section for eleven year old kids. As a result, the public applied considerable political pressure, and this led to an emergency HEPL Board meeting in which many of the same activists who are now yelling at every board meeting spoke in favor of keeping these particular books shelved in the 11-17 section of the library.

Ms. Waterman was finally driven, without ever acknowledging any error, to move these books to the adult section. And, in addition, she insisted on moving the entire youth non-fiction collection along with the two books we were concerned about. That means she moved about 1,000 books, most of which nobody was concerned about, apparently just to avoid saying that she agreed with us that the two books in question had been inappropriately shelved. She later explained to me that the youth non-fiction collection was moved because of its size. So she never backed off of her judgment that the books had always been appropriately shelved, and she never admitted that they were moved because of their inappropriate content. The book Let’s Talk About It is still marked as “for teenagers” in the HEPL catalog.

Here is my second question for the alleged moderate:

Do you agree with Ms. Waterman that these books were correctly shelved in the first place?

If so, I think there’s simply no compromising with you, and you must be opposed at the voting booth.

If you don’t agree with Ms. Waterman, and you recognize that these particular books actually needed to be moved, then we might be able to compromise. But you need to acknowledge that Ms. Waterman is wrong about this. And I’d also recommend stating whether this constitutes a change in view for you, since dozens of the same leftists who are still attending HEPL meetings were vocally in favor of keeping these books in the youth section in February 2022, and falsely accused people who took the opposing view of being “book banners” and “censors.” If you’ve changed your view, an acknowledgement and an apology are in order. That’s how to make it clear that you want to compromise. We aren’t just going to pretend these things never happened.

If you’re still with me, here’s my next question:

What should be done about Ms. Waterman’s lack of judgment on this issue?

My own view has been that, because of her gross incompetence at judging what is appropriate for eleven-year-old children, Ms. Waterman cannot continue to be in charge of the youth sections of the library. But I’m open to other suggestions, because I am in fact willing to compromise.

Since these two books were moved, the HEPL Board passed a new collection development policy that requires moving all the inappropriate books out of the youth collections. I’ve been surprised at how many explicit, erotic novels have been found since then in these sections. Don’t take my word for it: see for yourself. You can have a look at summaries of the explicit content in three such books here, here, and here.

This leads me to my fourth question for the alleged moderate:

Which of the erotic novels summarized at the links I just gave do you want to be kept in the youth section, and what is the relevant difference between these and adult erotic novels?

Final question. If you are a real moderate who agrees that the two books I first mentioned, and the erotic novels I cited, really didn’t belong in the youth section, then you must answer the most important question of all:

How do you propose to determine the appropriate shelving location for books at the library?

Thus far, the claim of the leftists at the HEPL Board meetings has been that books should generally be shelved according to the “intended audience” of their authors. This is also evidently Edra Waterman’s view. But, by this criterion, the book Let’s Talk About It was appropriately shelved in the youth section, since that reflects the intended audience of the self-described pervert who wrote it. For this reason, if you are a moderate who thinks that we should disregard the opinions of self-described perverts on library shelving locations, you need to articulate a different approach.

Here’s my favored approach: hire a library director who, unlike Ms. Waterman, has the competence and good judgment to tell where a book should be shelved, at least in clear cases such as the ones at issue. The current HEPL Board evidently prefers a different approach, which is expressed in their new Collection Development Policy. This approach was not my preference, as I think that no policy can ever replace sound judgment. But, despite this reservation, I think the new policy is clearly a lot better than what we had before.

If you don’t like these ideas, then articulate an alternative. Perhaps a revised policy that is less strict than the one currently on the books, but which would relocate the most egregious examples, such as the books I have mentioned?

In my view, this is how compromise can work. That is, if you’re really serious about wanting to compromise. Otherwise, we will see you at the polls.