Librarians Against Sarah Palin

What a great thing it was to find a Wordpress blog called LIBRARIANS AGAINST SARAH PALIN: http://librariansagainstsarahpalin.wordpress.com/. Like Chris says, human connection ROCKS. Okay, so I paraphrased. You get the point. So check out their blog.

From this point forward, my blog may take on a BANNED BOOKS theme, focused on Chris challenges, because suddenly we've received word of three different challenges to THE SLEDDING HILL and DEADLINE. Not such a huge departure from screaming FOUL agaisnt Palin, admittedly. But this time, it's personal.

Wait until you read Mark Rogers letter to Chris -- and even better, Chris's response. It's a think of sharp witted beauty. And it should be available later tonight here, on CC's blog, his MySpace and his website. The war is on! My money's on CC and free speech.

Kelly

NYT on Palin and her Wasilla censors

Thanks Jeff, for sharing this article with me!

Today's NYTimes has an extensive article on Sarah Palin's Alaska management style, including this excerpt on her interaction with the Wasilla library:

The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.

“People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”

To read the whole article, follow this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

From CBS website & ABC News

More evidence from CBS News website and an ABC News report.

Yesterday, ABC News' Brian Ross moved the ball forward a bit, with an interesting report. Ross emphasized an angle I previously hadn't heard much about.

Palin was elected mayor thanks in large part to the strong backing of her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, which, right around the time Palin took office, "began to focus on certain books available in local stores and in the town library, including one called 'Go Ask Alice,' and another one written by a local pastor, Howard Bess, called 'Pastor, I am Gay.'"

Palin became mayor, her church was interested in censorship, and soon after, Palin asked a "rhetorical" question about how books might be excluded from the public library. When the librarian resisted, she was, at least initially, fired.

The line from the McCain campaign has been that Palin never had any interest whatsoever in banning library books.

That seems increasingly difficult to believe.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/11/politics/animal/main4439414.shtml

Former Wasilla Librarian speaks

In this report, McCain's camp denies Palin ever considered pulling books. But the former Wasilla children's librarian had comments of her own. http://www.newsroomamerica.com/politics/story.php?id=431112

"Mayor Palin gave us some terrible moments and some rather gut-wrenching moments, particularly when Mary Ellen said she was going to have to leave," Cathy Petrie, who managed the children's collection at the time at the Wasilla public library, told The Associated Press.

Library Journal coverage

And the Library Journal also featured this story today.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6594759.html?desc=topstory

Wasilla Librarian Doesn’t Recall “Banned” Titles, but Reporter Does, Vaguely
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 9/10/2008
First public statement by former library head
Newspaper reporter recalls titles, but memory unclear
Palin’s church concerned about book on gays; mayor's role murky

More details from PolitiFacts.com

The St. Petersburg Times PolitiFacts.com has a GREAT and fact filled account of Palin's skirmish with her librarian, including the fact that Emmons (left, now Baker) was the president of the Alaska Library Association when the questions were asked.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/704/

Read it all, if you have time, but a few key excerpts:

The most definitive record for much of this issue comes from a Dec. 18, 1996, article in the Wasilla newspaper, the Frontiersman. In that story, Wasilla library director Mary Ellen Emmons (now Mary Ellen Baker) said that after Palin was elected mayor, she twice inquired about censoring library books.

“I’m not trying to suppress anyone’s views,” Emmons told the Frontiersman. “But I told her (Palin) clearly, I will fight anyone who tries to dictate what books can go on the library shelves.”

“This is different than a normal book-selection procedure or a book-challenge policy,” Emmons said. “She was asking me how I would deal with her saying a book can’t be in the library.”

Palin told the Frontiersman that she had no particular books or other material in mind when she posed the questions to Emmons.

In a written statement to the newspaper, Palin “said she was only trying to get acquainted with her staff” and that the question was “rhetorical.”

Also from the story:

“Emmons said Palin asked her on Oct. 28 if she would object to censorship, even if people were circling the library in protest about a book. ‘I told her it would definitely be a problem the ACLU would take on then,’ Emmons said.

“Asked who she thought might picket the library, Palin said Monday, ‘Had no one in mind ... again, the issue was discussed in the context of a professional question being asked in regards to library policy.’ ”

A message on her answering machine states: “I have nothing to add to reports from that time. I do not want to discuss the matter. Please respect my privacy.”

But the Frontiersman reporter [Paul Stuart] who wrote that article in 1996 now says Emmons told him Palin did mention three books that she wanted removed from the shelves.

“Mary Ellen told me that Palin asked her directly to remove these books from the shelves,” Stuart said. “She refused.”

ABC News: "Pastor, I am Gay" book challenge

ABC News featured the first statements by Mary Ellen Baker (married name), the Alaskan librarian caught in the Palin book challenge controversy today. The lead, by Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz and Anna Schecter says:

"The librarian at the center of a 1996 controversy with then-Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin says she can't recall any effort by Palin to ban specific books from the town library."

But the article goes on to explain there was a push to remove a book from a bookstore when Palin posed the censorship question "rhetorically." Twice.

"Palin's church...had been pushing for the removal a book called 'Pastor I Am Gay' from local bookstores, according to the book's author Pastor Howard Bess, of the Church of the Covenant in nearby Palmer, Alaska.

"'And she was one of them,' said Bess, 'this whole thing of controlling information, censorship, that's part of the scene,' said Bess. "

A local reporter remembers it a little differently, according to ABC.

The local newspaper reporter who covered the controversy, Paul Stuart, claims he was later told by the librarian that Palin wanted three specific books removed from the library.

In her statement to ABC News, the librarian said, "I am unable to dispute or substantiate the information Paul Stuart provided to you."

Stuart said he was confident of his memory. "She may have said that but that's not how it was."

Read the whole article for an objective look at what actually happened.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5766173&page=1

For more about "Pastor, I am Gay," follow this URL:
http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/Homosexuality%20and%20the%20Church/Pastor%20I%20am%20Gay%20%20%20%20%20Book%20Review.htm