Actor, Author, and Christian Activist Kirk Cameron has been the leading edge of Brave Books Freedom Island Tour. Since February, Cameron, other Brave Books authors, and allies have visited libraries around the nation, from the capital in D.C. to the West Coast, holding story hours where they read from the Brave Books story series like Cameron’s As You Grow, John Solomon’s Hidden Headlines, and Cameron’s latest, Pride Comes Before The Fall. Along with the readings, these story hours incorporate reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and music that honors the country and instructs children on values such as honor, loyalty, friendship, faith, and love.

When I spoke with Cameron and Brave Books Founder and CEO Trent Talbot back in May, they teased the next phase of the Freedom Island Tour with plans for a huge nationwide event. That event, “See You At The Library” is planned for August 5. Brave Books is encouraging families to gather at their local public libraries for a story hour where they can pray, sing, and read from the Brave Books lineup or other books of virtue. Brave Books seeks to empower local communities to do what Brave Books has been doing these past few months: unite around the good of values and our country, and promote what is noble, right, pure, admirable, and excellent.

Apparently, this plan does not sit well with American Library Association (ALA), a group that feels it is its mission to protect the LGBTQA members of its community and thwart any event that it feels opposes them. This national association is of course taxpayer funded to the tune of 206.5 million in 2022 for the nation’s libraries, so your tax dollars continue to go toward support of initiatives and programs that do not align with your beliefs and oppose your values.

According to the ALA website,

The American Library Association is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members as of 2021.

And this is from their Mission statement:

“To provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.”

Below that is a Priorities paragraph, in which ALA focuses its true agenda: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—Unless you’re a conservative organization spewing what they deem is hate, then there is no inclusion for you in their agenda:

In 1998 the ALA Council voted commitment to five Key Action Areas as guiding principles for directing the Association’s energies and resources: Diversity, Equity of Access, Education and Continuous Learning, Intellectual Freedom, and 21st Century Literacy. With the development of a series of strategic plans, beginning with ALA Goal 2000,  ALAction 2005,  ALA Ahead to 2010, these principles have expanded to eight Key Action Areas, which are supplemented by ALA Ahead to 2015, the Association’s current strategic plan.

The statement throws in phrases like, “Continuous Learning” and “Intellectual Freedom,” as if they are throwaway lines with no meaning. The ALA’s director Deborah Caldwell-Stone presented at the June 8 Library 2023 Worldwide Virtual Conference and made it pretty clear that conservative literature and thought, and patriotic books should not be learned, and the ALA should not sanction public access for any programs that seek to promote or bring attention to such ideals.

🚨 1/ BREAKING: We have obtained exclusive evidence that the taxpayer-funded American Library Association @ALALibrary is circulating guidance to sabotage conservative or Christian parent groups from gathering in public libraries on August 5th. One ALA director gave suggestions on… pic.twitter.com/iBqwIChNhJ

— BRAVE BOOKS (@BraveBooksUS) June 26, 2023

1/ BREAKING: We have obtained exclusive evidence that the taxpayer-funded American Library Association @ALALibrary is circulating guidance to sabotage conservative or Christian parent groups from gathering in public libraries on August 5th. One ALA director gave suggestions on how libraries could block public meeting room use under the pretext of the space already being taken for other activities.

In the tweet, Brave Books includes a snippet of Caldwell-Stone’s presentation which they obtained from that conference. Director Caldwell-Stone pretty much recommends options on how to prevent interested citizens from hosting a Brave Books story hour because Cameron and Brave Books seek to “censor LGBTQA library materials,” and that such an event seeks to “exploit the open nature of a public library to advance their agenda.”

And what exactly is Drag Queen Story Hour all about? Is this not exploiting the open nature of the library system to advance the agenda of LGBTQA rights? And why do you need children at these drag queen story events? How does involving children advance their agenda?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Kelly Jensen, a former librarian, activist, and editor at Book Riot is also not on board with the See You At the Library Event, raising the alarm against what she deems as a policy and safety concern, and encourages getting the lawyers involved:

So the August 5 events being mass-coordinated by anyone who wishes to set up a story time at their local public library are a ripe opportunity for all of these elements to clash and for right-wing “activists” to proclaim they’re being discriminated against by a taxpayer institution. Brave Books has developed a resource kit for anyone wishing to put together one of these story times, and they have set up a map for people to drop pins for confirmed events. Doing this inevitably connects the public libraries with Brave Books, and given how few people know the actual intricacies behind library policy — and indeed, with people of this particular persuasion not wanting to care about them — the flames are about to grow hotter.

[…] This includes reviewing your policies around meeting rooms and meeting with your legal representation on what requirements you can and cannot make of those requesting rooms (specifically around security — someone like Cameron, via his profile, is a public safety concern but also, knowing that increased law enforcement at the public library is antithetical to the tenants of librarianship and is an impediment for the use of the facility by marginalized individuals, what do you do?).

Caldwell-Stone continues her recommendations from the audio of the embedded video,

For example, right now Brave Books and Kirk Cameron are conducting a campaign to take over libraries on August 5, by applying to use meeting rooms—encouraging individuals to apply to use library meeting rooms for Kirk Cameron story hours.

Not having the full audio (yet), I cannot say whether Caldwell-Stone mentioned any other organization; but it is clear from the audio presented that, like Jensen, this particular Brave Books initiative—and Kirk Cameron in particular—has her exercised.

So, let’s look at how you can use that Public Forum doctrine to construct policies and procedures that can help you keep control of the library yourself.

First, remember that there, as I said before, libraries are for receipt of information. That means that the First Amendment does not require the library to even offer meeting room spaces. So, this, in regard to the Kirk Cameron thing, you are not obligated to offer public meeting room spaces or invite the public in to use the library.

So what are my tax dollars paying for? When did a publicly-funded organization get to change the definition of “public?” The word PUBLIC indicates openness without exclusion. Public parks, public spaces, the public square, etcetera, etcetera. Otherwise, they would be deemed PRIVATE and outline who is allowed the use of these spaces, and who is not.

Of course, this might be something you don’t want to do. You don’t want to deny your community access to a public meeting to serve those community members and community groups who really need to use it. In which case you need to develop policies that leave you control of the library.

So, here are some of the options that allow you to keep control of your library and its meeting rooms for the use of your community and for the use of the library users who might be targeted by a particular event.

Notice the number of times Caldwell-Stone used the word, CONTROL. If this director was truly interested in the impact Brave Books was having on the libraries that have hosted their story hours, it is not hidden. Brave Books has pictures and videos on its website, and conservative and legacy media has covered several of the events, including the protests from drag queens and other LGBTQA activists. Do you know who at the events have been out of control? Those very LGBTQA individuals that Caldwell-Stone is supposedly trying to protect from the likes of Brave Books and Cameron.

You can limit access to meeting rooms to persons eligible to hold a library card in your community. You can make a priority for Library-sponsored programs, and what if your library decided to offer a whole host of programs in its meeting room on August 5, making it unavailable to public? That’s another option for you.

So, Caldwell-Stone is basically encouraging suppression and censorship, ironically the concepts that she is supposed to be against. Limit access by pretending the Library calendar is too full to host any unsponsored events. In terms of libraries and the national calendar, does anything of import happen in August? Most people are ending their summers and preparing for a new school year, so it would be interesting to see what any community that chooses this tactic comes up with. According to Brave Books, they are hearing from people seeking to reserve their local library meeting room in order to participate in the August 5 event who are encountering controlled opposition. They quote one internal library source who said:

“The children’s services coordinator at the New Jersey State Library system notified employees about the upcoming story hour Brave Books had planned to organize at libraries across America. Frankly, I had to read the email three times. The text is nothing less than an active call for de-platforming Brave Books. What is particularly chilling is that her call for suppression is premised solely on the fact that Brave Books ‘ha[s] a right-wing ideology.’ In essence, her rationale is that any speech that is right of center has no place in NJ libraries.”

Brave Books gives praise to the community libraries who have welcomed their story hours as just another perspective and not a hate agenda and offers assistance to anyone who feels they may be facing resistance from their local library.

11/ If you have a suspicion your library is intentionally blocking you from hosting a “See You at the Library” event on August 5th, please contact us at [email protected]. We have guidance on what to do next.

Thank you, @ladykennington, for finding the clips that we…

— BRAVE BOOKS (@BraveBooksUS) June 26, 2023

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge that not all libraries are violating your free speech rights. Some have been professional and fair, such as Seattle Public Library @SPLBuzz. Follow us on @BraveBooksUS  as we continue to provide updates.

This is not dissimilar to what is occurring in school districts across the country. School boards seeking to back a particular agenda is one thing. But if you, as a taxpaying citizen are asked to fund an agenda that does not promote learning and that you do not agree with, you have every right to not only refuse but seek to bring change to the situation. But this goes beyond that. School boards and libraries are demanding your children be the guinea pigs in their social experiments, and conservative, patriotic, and commonsense families are not having it. They are drawing a line, and Cameron and Brave Books are simply giving them the red chalk to do it.

The ALA does not like this one bit.