In the small town of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, a city council member accused staff at the public library of grooming kids with a Pride Month display in the children’s section, which librarians titled “Love is Love.”
The councilman may have broken the law in his crusade to have it removed.
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On June 19, council member Bill Krut reposted a photo from the Monroeville Library’s Facebook page, showing the books on display, including “I Am Perfectly Designed” by Karamo Brown, “The GayBCs” by M.L. Webb, and “Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle” by Nina LeCour.
Krut captioned the repost with his own take on the Pride display.
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“Should these books be available at the Monroeville Library? I think not. I don’t care what adults do. This is child, sexual grooming.”
Kelly Meredith, president of the library board, which has sole control of content in the town’s library, said she was appalled by the post.
“Particularly offensive was the implication that our library staff is, in any way, grooming children,” Meredith told TribLive. She called the community to action.
“We had a library board meeting on June 22, where about 50 or 60 people in support of the special section showed up, with 17 people speaking in support.”
“Everyone at the library board meeting except Bill Krut and [fellow council member] Bob Williams was in support of keeping the section,” said library patron Patty Whitaker of Monroeville.
“We even had three or four pastors at the meeting in support of keeping it up, and Bob Williams was up there quoting Leviticus and telling church pastors that they didn’t know the Bible.”
The overwhelming support might have put the council members’ objections to rest in other circumstances, but according to the library’s supporters, the two men didn’t let the issue go, and they might have violated the law in the process.
Four days after the library board meeting, Monroeville City Manager Alex Graziani reached out to library staff and requested they take down the “Love Is Love” display. He advised them that it was the appropriate time to replace the Pride Month display with content aligned with the town’s July 4th celebrations.
“As June was coming to a close and the municipality was preparing for our All-American Weekend celebration on July 3-5, which also commemorates Monroeville’s 75th anniversary and is part of the America 250 initiative, I asked the Monroeville Public Library director to have the children’s library staff shift their attention to those community events,” Graziani wrote in a statement released to news outlets.
“The decision was based on the timing of seasonal displays and our focus on the upcoming municipal events.”
Graziani’s ask, it turns out, followed private conversations with council members Krut and Williams, who pushed Graziani to force the removal of the display.
According to Meredith and other community members, Graziani and the councilmen violated the law with their actions. Meredith decided the library staff’s safety required giving in to Graziani’s demand.
Katie Baumgarten, executive director of Monroeville Area Pride and Community Aid, said the town has a history of inclusivity.
“People are really shocked and disappointed because after the showing of overwhelming support on Monday, I think most people thought that even if our officials felt the way that they felt, they would see that their constituents did not feel the same way and would not continue to pressure the library. But unfortunately, that’s not what happened.”
Melissa Melewsky, attorney at the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the city manager and council members weren’t adhering to Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act, which bars officials from conducting public business behind closed doors.
“From the municipal side, what I hear is a series of one-on-one conversations in order to avoid a quorum” at the town council, Melewsky said. “The question is: Was this a decision made outside of a public forum? And I would say yes.”
“They appear to have done this without any public participation, and the public has a right to a voice in the process,” Melewsky said. “I think it raises a lot of questions under the Sunshine Act, and it raises potential additional problems: Does this council operate like this on a regular basis? Something like this throws up a red flag.”
Both library board president Meredith and library supporter Whitaker said their conversations with Graziani indicated he’d been pressured by multiple council members to remove the display, despite the absence of any “sexualizing” content.
“There was nothing sexual, nothing about people’s bodies,” Whitaker said. “It was very benign, basic kids’ stuff. If anything, they were more so about, ‘These are the types of families you may encounter. Johnny might have two daddies.’”
The councilmen “were referring to these books as tools for grooming, and they were not. They weren’t teen-romance novels or anything with sex scenes that would be age-inappropriate,” Whitaker said.
Krut was steadfast in his opposition to the display, despite the accusation he may have broken the law in having it removed. “Exposing” children to LGBTQ+ content was the same as “grooming” them, he told TribLive.
“The people who want those books there are calling me a bigot,” he said. “I don’t care what adults do, but the books were right there in front of a play mat for children, and for them to say they’re not trying to influence children — then why are they there?”
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