Opinion: Bronson's far-right assault on LGBT books is to be expected.
Throughout last year's mayoral campaign, I repeatedly warned that if elected, David Bronson would wage war on the LGBTQ community. That day has arrived in the form of a far-right attack on the Anchorage Public Library (APL), whose patrons trust and rely on their services.
Last March, in a piece titled 'The radical anti-LGBT views of mayoral candidate Dave Bronson,' I documented Bronson's anti-LGBTQ positions. I even drudged up the 2007 testimony Bronson gave before the House State Affairs Standing Committee, where he testified that it would "be nice" if the issue of gay marriage would "go away" and claimed that "a small group of homosexual activists and their willing allies in the judiciary through very tortured logic determined that since homosexual employees of the state could not be married, they must be treated as if they are married – and that is through same-sex benefits."
You can listen to audio of Bronson's public testimony here.
In that same piece, I recounted the Midnight Sun's 2015 reporting that Deborah Bronson — Mayor Bronson's wife — who now sits on the Library Advisory Board, and former Anchorage Republican Women's Club President Judy Eledge, currently Deputy Director of the Anchorage Public Library, had filed a proposed petition to repeal the Anchorage gay rights ordinance (AO-96) passed that same year.
Bronson sycophant and pretend free speech advocate Eagle River Assembly person Jamie Allard came out as a member of the transphobic community last July when she called all transgender people "mentally ill" on the Louisiana-based Dan Fagan show. In January, Allard posted pictures of Jack (Not Jackie) on display at the library to the Save Anchorage group and asked her fellow members to email Mayor Bronson and Judy Eledge with their thoughts about the book's display.
Throngs of Bronson supporters, some associated with the far-right Save Anchorage operation, have accused assembly members of being pedophiles and have directed more homophobic slurs in the direction of Anchorage politicians than one can quite literally count.
So it shouldn't be surprising that two days ago, I wrote about Judy Eledge's interest in books that address topics of gender identity and gender expression—taking time to review them personally without checking them out as is required on her library card. In one instance, Eledge took a copy of the book Jack (Not Jackie) off the shelf because she needed it for a Library Advisory Board meeting that Deborah Bronson is a member of. I also recounted challenges made by a library patron to three gender-specific books with the likely goal of either purging the books from APL or hiding them elsewhere in the library by recategorizing them.
Yesterday I published a story detailing that the Youth Advisory Commission (YAC) has also been working on a project with the intended goal of censoring LGBT authors from the Anchorage Public Library and that, as a result, Lily Spiroski resigned from YAC.
The sudden interest of the Bronson Administration and its allies in LGBT-themed books at the public library is concerning but not surprising in light of the mayor's established anti-LGBT demagoguery.
Books that have been correctly categorized and sat on library shelves for years are now under intense scrutiny by so-called "concerned parents," the Anchorage Youth Advisory Commission, and the Anchorage Public Library deputy director, whose own transphobic and homophobic social media posts are well documented.
Around the country, librarians have been forced to defend their book collection policies in the wake of legal threats and, in some cases, have resigned in protest. Libraries stock a wide range of books to meet the needs of diverse readers, and young people need to see their experiences represented in literature — all the more so if they belong to groups that have been historically overlooked in publishing.
Just today, in the city of Ridgeland, Mississippi, the public library is facing the potential loss of two staff members and funding for new materials and programming after Mayor Gene McGee said he would not continue city funding for the library until "homosexual materials" are removed.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said last November that backlash against many LGBT books is part of a "cynical campaign" by groups who object to civil liberties for LGBTQ+ people. They've characterized all books related to the LGBTQ+ experience as inappropriate for minors, which she called a "total misrepresentation."
It is irrelevant whether the books stay in their current classification at the Anchorage Public Library or whether they are moved or removed altogether. Take note of the amount of time and energy Bronson's allies are spending — focused on LGBT material at the library under the auspice of wanting to protect other children from the 'harms' of LGBT material — utterly oblivious to the fact that their actions are an affront to every family member, friend, or ally of the LGBT community and a form of censorship regardless of intent.
The same mayor who argued against marriage equality for all of his fellow Alaskans is the same mayor who appointed Judy Eledge, of all people, as director of the Anchorage Public Library and who put his wife on the Library Advisory Board also has numerous allies on the Youth Advisory Commission.
Wasn't this Bronson's plan all along?
