A Columbia County citizen is once again voicing her opinion on the placement of certain books in the Columbia County Library.
Priscilla Bence spoke before the Columbia County Board of Commissioners during the meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 15 about LGBTQ+ books that she said are in the children, youth and young adult sections of the library.
“About 16 months ago, some of us began to challenge books in the children’s section,” Bence said. “These books had all been recommended by the Rainbow Coalition of the American Library Association. All of these books promote and glamorize the LGBTQ+ lifestyle even though sometimes it’s subtle. Like I read a children’s book this week. It was just the back flap was talking about the authors and one of them is binary queer, so it’s actually propaganda to the parent. The book itself seemed to be ok. It had a couple of strange words.”
Bence said up until recently, she and others have challenged books that have been easily accessible by minors, and out of the approximately 20 books that she’s aware of that have been challenged, only one has been removed. She stated the challenge process has not worked well, and the library board has voted in agreement with Mary Lin Maner, the library manager, who either orders the books or her staff does. Another issue she claimed they were facing was that the challenge/reconsideration forms now must be submitted online instead of in-person as they had been doing.
These books, Bence stated, normalize and glamorize the LGBTQ+ lifestyle.
“Most of the electorate does not agree with this,” Bence said. “Facts bear out severe consequences for these lifestyles, addiction, disease, suicide, and then you hear about the trans surgery and the trans treatment. We are a county of many religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, none of the religions support these alternative lifestyles.”
Bence went on to state that in March, the Columbia County Republican Party unanimously voted for a resolution that moves the books out of reach and sight of children. She also thanked the commissioners who have spoken to her about this topic.
“I do have a couple of questions for Commissioners (Alison) Couch,” Bence said. “We do need to know who is in charge of the hiring and firing of our library manager. I read the bylaws of the library, and they are not clear on this. Secondly, I’m requesting from Commissioner Couch that we look into two ways to check out books.”
Bence stated two ways to check out the books are needed because, when they check out books to review and challenge, those books are checked out the traditional way. By checking them out this way, she said it looks like the books are popular and the community wants more of them ordered.
“In conclusion, our request is simple,” Bence said. “It does require courage. The legal cases that attorney Driver gave, found for me to look over, there’s 16 pages of approximately 40 cases. One of them was not in our favor, but all the others support a strong, governing body decision on these…area matters based on community values, the good of society, a big one was preventing conflict and chaos. Also, unlike adults, which are protected by the constitution, children are not protected by the constitution. Instead they depend on governing bodies. They depend on parents…”
Board Chair Doug Duncan asked Chris Driver, the county attorney, to address the legal side of the issue.
“What they’re requesting would be considered content-based restriction,” Driver said. “It’s a restriction based on the content of the book, here the homosexual nature of the books. This has been addressed by courts. There has been no case that I’ve found that’s been found in favor of being able to do this. In fact, there’s a court case [that is almost this exact point] that says you can’t do that. The reason being is with First Amendment cases, if you restrict based on content itself, you’re under a strict scrutiny and pretty much just lose almost every time….”
Bence asked if there was another name for content and stated this lifestyle was almost “like a religion.”
“There must be some other word besides content because LBGTQ+AI plus, plus, plus, this is almost like a religion in our culture right now,” Bence said. “Is there not a way, do we allow Nazi books to be on display and then we let the children learn how to be a Nazi or how to be a drug dealer or any other harmful lifestyle, do we allow that?”
District 1 Commissioner Connie Melear asked Bence if she had a specific issue with the performance of the library staff since she mentioned the hiring and firing of the library manager.
“I don’t think right now we have the representation of the community because the resolution has not even been addressed so far,” Bence said. “There’s no concern that, like you said 65% of the population, do you think if the Democrats had won with 65% they would be bending over backwards to do everything we want? No, I think we won by 65%. We need to act like it.”
Melear asked again if her issue is with the staff or library board.
“My issue is with no one,” Bence said. “My issue is just the fact of what we need to do. The manager is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I’m sure that’s why they vote along with her.”
District 4 Commissioner Alison Couch told Bence that to answer her question about the hiring and firing of the library manager, that would be county manager Scott Johnson. As far as the concern about the reconsideration forms, Couch said she has emailed with her about it, but that in December 2022, the online submittal form changed and that citizens had until Aug. 1, 2023 to turn in any hard copies of the form.
Bence stated that nobody at the library has told her anything about the change in form submittal process, and she just checked out some more books to review.
“I even picked up forms a few days ago when I picked up eight more books, and I said now how do I turn this in this time, and she said call Ms. Maner and she gave me the card,” Bence said. “I had never been told to go online the three times I checked out books to review and challenge.”
Couch asked Bence if she did speak with Maner about it like she was told when she asked. Bence said she has not gotten to that point yet. The form for reconsideration can be found here.
Bence did state she doesn’t want any books banned or removed from the adult section, but that they should be moved to the adult section or behind the circulation desk.
This isn’t the first time Bence has spoken out about books in the library. She has come before the Columbia County Board of Commissioners and the Columbia County Library Board to voice her thoughts.
The Columbia County Library Board is scheduled to meet on Sept. 12 at 11:30 a.m.
Stephanie Hill is the managing editor and covers Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
