Isn't another of the problems one of the uninformed "people" choosing their library board members? People just vote for "familiar names" and never learn about the library philosophies of such candidates. Or county commissions name library board members from approved lists, all of whom adhere to the liberal view of libraries. Therefore, outraged citizens cannot understand "what happened." They just go on with an occasional complaint and vote for the "familiar names" on the ballot.
Theodore R. is exactly correct. We get what we vote for. But I can't blame people who grew up not having porn in public libraries from knowing that libraries now serve porn on silver platters. Our mission is to educate people about this problem.
The issue of whether or not this is censorship is moot. It is not censoeship. The US v. ALA Supreme Court case on our web site proves that.
Further, the issue is not that we want to force the public library to install filters. That is not the subject of this thread and if some people have steered it that way, they have misrepresented our views. Our issue is that citizens in a community need to be polled to determine whether or not they want filters. Then, whatever they decide, the public library should comply. So any one person or group, even our own, that says one thing or another about filters is not important. The important thing is to find out the views of the citizens of the town. As it is now, our library and our town refuses to even poll the public to determine their wishes. Instead they rely on the ALA to force us not to have filters. The ALA believes children should have access to porn because it would be age discrimination to keep them from seeing it. Now if the citizens of our town believe that as well, so be it. But it should be up to the citizens to make that call, not the ALA. That's the point of our message. Please consider this when reviewing our web site and responding here.
In all cases, pro and con, thank you all for your interest in this issue of who controls the public library, the taxpaying public or a union of librarians pushing porn on children. Please see our full view on this issue at
http://www.plan2succeed.org/p2spressrelease12-2003.html . Thanks again.