No taxpayer {dollars} to dam Kirk Cameron library occasions, demand GOP senators

A gaggle of Republican senators desires to know whether or not taxpayer funds have been utilized by the American Library Association to dam readings of books by Christian creator Kirk Cameron whereas the group advocates for “drag queen story hours.”

The lawmakers, led by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, demanded the knowledge in a letter Friday to Crosby Kemper III, director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services and a Trump nominee. They pressed Mr. Kemper to find out what the ALA has carried out with federal funds authorised for the group.

The senators additionally need present federal funding for the group halted whereas the affiliation’s conduct is probed.

“The ALA should not be eligible to receive federal funding should an investigation find that the ALA violated the First Amendment rights of Americans,” the letter states.

Joining Mr. Rubio in signing the letter are Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

They mentioned the general public library group has acquired thousands and thousands of {dollars} in taxpayer funds over a number of many years, together with cash for “free community engagement training.”

The ALA made headlines final month when Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who heads the group’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, gave a web-based presentation suggesting methods to dam using public assembly rooms in native libraries on Aug. 5, which Mr. Cameron’s writer, Brave Books, is selling nationwide as a day to go to libraries to learn the Christian creator’s youngsters’s books.

“You can limit access to meeting rooms to persons eligible to hold a library card in your community. You could make a priority for library-sponsored programs,” Ms. Caldwell-Stone, mentioned within the on-line June 8 presentation, which was posted on Library 2.0.

The ALA officer mentioned “another option” could be for a library to supply different packages on Aug. 5, “making it unavailable for the public.”

ALA says it’s the world’s “oldest, largest, and most influential library association,” with a roster of greater than 50,000 members. Ms. Caldwell-Stone acknowledged that libraries should provide public areas to events on a nondiscriminatory foundation, saying, “If someone who’s eligible to use the room books the room, and has a Kirk Cameron story hour, they’re entitled to do that.”

She mentioned that if a Cameron-related occasion is scheduled, libraries can “have a library-sponsored Pride festival the same day and fill the library with rainbows” and put up posters signaling a dedication to “inclusion and diversity.”

But if the ALA is utilizing taxpayer {dollars} to advertise such efforts, that’s not acceptable, Mr. Rubio and his colleagues wrote.

“As a recipient of federal funds, the ALA is prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to violate the First Amendment,” the letter notes. “However, it appears the ALA is ignoring this prohibition for the sole purpose of silencing Brave Books while simultaneously also advocating for ‘Drag Queen Story Hour.’”

According to the GOP senators, “Brave Books deserves the same opportunity to host and organize events in public libraries as other groups, including those that the ALA has taken an aggressive role promoting.”

According to the IMLS database, the ALA acquired $249,963 in federal funds in fiscal yr 2023 for a two-year undertaking “to develop new tools and training models to support authentic engagement of Spanish-speaking families” in affiliation with the National Center for Families Learning.