After almost three years, are we ready to call it “victory” in the long-running battle to protect our children in the St. Tammany public library branches?
With the front-page story being published today in The Slidell Independent it is clear that great strides have been made in this battle. After Library Director Kelly LaRocca told this newspaper she has directed all branch managers to monitor the restricted Adult sections where sexually explicit books have been placed, so minors don’t wander in there, many people believe the battle is finally over.
To recap, it was June 2022, when a few parish moms were stunned to walk into a library branch in Mandeville and see a prominent display on a table for PRIDE month, along with a handful of books supporting and educating kids about being gay, lesbian or transgender. Of course, the response was shock—at least to the majority of parish residents.
I first learned about it when I heard from a pastor that a local grandmother was taking on the battle with the Library Board to get the books moved to a restricted section. Then, we heard there were other books found that had highly graphic sexual content, pornography, gay and lesbian sex pictures—it went on and on.
When I first heard about this I was probably like most people. “Oh, it can’t be that bad, can it?”
Since then, I have been forced to look into these books, read far more excerpts than I would like, and confirm that this is truly a campaign with highly-detailed sexual details that aims to sexualize our children….as if they don’t have enough sex bombarding them through Social Media.
Additionally, a clear effort was being made to normalize alternative lifestyles, including the transgender movement that I believe is a lie from the pit of hell. I don’t care who feels what way about the sex they were born into, I will never believe God made a mistake, and you need to have your sexual body parts cut off to change your sex.
I feel for those individuals who are so unhappy with themselves, depressed and so certain they were born into the wrong body. But I will never agree with anyone, especially young people, permanently changing their bodies to become the opposite sex—something that more often than not turns out to be a clear mistake years later.
But back to the books. For nearly three years a handful of conservatives, including this newspaper, have publicized the truth about this matter and fought—not to ban books—but to simply put them in a restricted section requiring parental approval for minors to access.
Still, far-left liberal believers fought with everything in them to make sure kids could see and read these books. I still cannot understand what kind of adults would think that way, and believe children need to be sexualized so young. Argue all you want, there is virtually no good to be found in pushing a young boy or girl to know all about sex at young ages.
So, now we have the books in a restricted section, and LaRocca—to her credit—has seen that it is better to make some concessions and promise strong supervision of the Adult section. For that, I and others appreciate the decision on her part to not fight against this so hard.
But do we claim victory?
From the outset, the goal was to have the books put behind the counter. Instead, LaRocca created a new Adult section which still has some chance of kids wandering in there. But even I have to say that the hourly supervision is a big step to respect the wishes and beliefs of what I know are a large majority of St. Tammany residents who call themselves conservatives.
Sometimes you have to accept winning a lot of small battles even if you don’t completely win the war. That is what I see here.
We greatly raised awareness of what is happening in our public libraries, which is still shocking to understand why anyone ever thought these books were needed in the first place. That is another matter that needs to be addressed since I see no reason our tax money needs to be spent so minors can be sexualized.
But at the end of almost three years, I feel thankful to have gotten this far. We are now providing much more protection for our children against pornography and sexualization than they had before it all started. And for that I will always appreciate people who stood up, even against tremendous criticism and personal loss….people like Donna Bonnoitt, Connie Phillips and David Cougle….who started the fight and refused to quit.
I don’t believe the fight is over, but once again—like proposed casino in 2021—we proved that the little people like many of us can make a difference.
You just have to be willing to stand, and then stand some more, believing that doing the right thing really does matter.
Kevin Chiri can be reached by e-mail at kevinchiri@gmail.com.