A local church is urging its members to permanently remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes.
Pamela Wilson Federspiel, who has been director of the library in downtown Shelbyville for 34 years, says the action is tantamount to “stealing.”
But three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville defend what they call an “act of civil disobedience.”
Go to their church, and borrow money from the collection tray without returning it
The religious… Always willing to break the law
And always willing to punosh others with it.
Bill them fees. Then take them to court when they don’t pay and if they do pay use the money to buy more of the books. These are fools that are used to being milked like cattle…use it for good.
There are two groups here. One wants to be allowed to live their lives in peace and one wants to control you. The press and the ones that want to control you you have twisted it and it’s infuriating.
Cause the press is afraid of not being able to talk to the ones that want to control you, So they double up by covering up/slanting stories that are critical of the controllers while punching down at everyone else…
Then, like good dogs, they look up at the controllers, panting and satisfied with themselves, begging for masters affection.
Typical Shelbyville.
This is what inbred cousin marriage does to a town.
I’ve worked in libraries and this isn’t a new tactic. The funny thing to me is that the library will almost always rebuy the missing book unless they were planning on removing it anyway, so the net result is a signal to the publishers to print more LGBTQ books.
This is the butterfly flutter that brings about the first trans president and cements the USA as the queerest place on Earth, a country so gay that none dare challenge us.
please dear God I’ve never asked you for anything before and I’ll never ask for anything again but
ICBMs covered in glitter.
ICBMs where the payload is glitter: new war crime unlocked. Glitter will be there for centuries to come
Not only print more of those books, but exhaust the library’s budget for other books.
Theft, plain and simple. The only hope is that they actually read those books and learn something.
Maybe the library should raise and enforce their late-return-fees…
It’s also a criminal conspiracy.
We can only hope the judge sees it as such, too.
Uncivil disobedience
Stealing from a library should be a deadly sin like kicking a puppy or pineapple on a pizza.
Civil disobedience often comes with the cost of breaking the law and enduring the consequences.
You may not agree with their non violent protest but as long as they suffer the consequences, I’m okay with it.
Just tell me where to donate to replace the books so they can accrue more punishment.
The way to fight this is easy. Offer to buy new library copies. Eventually they’ll run out of people without overdue books.
Burning or disposing of the books will also generate bad press because it associates them with their kindred spirits: Nazis and church censors.
Sue the church for damages, both physical and mental. It should cost them a lot to promote bigotry and hate.
Charge them for the full replacement value of the book, and then replace the book with 3 copies.
Don’t forget the late fees. So late fees + full replacement value, to easily fund the 3 copies.
Yeah, so when you take something that isn’t yours and don’t give it back. That’s theft.
Of course religious freaks are going to create their own reality in which theft isn’t theft. They’re pros at creating alternate realities when it benefits them.
These are criminals not only committing theft, but also a hate crime.
I’m sorry, but stealing a book from a library is not a hate crime, although I get the context and your sentiment. I would say that I’m low-key impressed by their sort of shenanigans as I admire civil disobedience.
It makes me feel like the alternative is to crowdsource some funding, buy all these books back, and… hold the thieves accountable by not allowing them to be lent books until paid or returned. Plus the stupid church people amp up library card holder numbers for funding from local taxes!
Stealing books alone isn’t a hate crime.
Targeting specific books because you hate a specific group of people, well maybe there’s no hate crime enhancer for theft. But it’s motivated by hate, it’s a hate crime.
I upvoted this vs. the other comment (yikes). I’m not disagreeing that this is hate motivated and it’s a crime… so yah… technically a “hate crime” but it doesn’t fit the legal definition and yah there should be consequences, but it’s not shooting up a gay bar. My intent wasn’t to minimize the hate, but to discuss how to push back against it for what it is…
“Hate crime” is a specific legal term. While unfortunate, the parent commenter is right; stealing books even when motivated by hate is not legally considered a hate crime.
Under federal law, only actions leading to bodily injury or attempts thereof can qualify as hate crimes.
Under Kentucky law (KRS 532.031), criminal mischief is only considered a hate crime if the amount of damage exceeds $500. While the total cost might exceed that, this is counted on a per-offender basis.
Don’t get me wrong, it definitely should be considered a hate crime and the legislature should change the law to define this action as a hate crime (even if it is a relatively minor one), but under the current law, it isn’t. It’s merely criminal mischief in the second degree.
If I were a prosecutor I would be trying to throw the book at these morons though.
The question I have is whether or not it can be considered censorship by the fact that they’re stealing books related to a specific minority group/topic with the intent to censor information about that group.
I think there’s a better case to be made there for federal charges.
yeah I hear you, I was just pointing out that it’s motivated by hate. And if it was any sort of violent crime it would have a hate crime enhancer on it.
It’s not direct harm, but the intention is to erase queer lives and queer media, that queer people rely on to find their reflection in. Especially if they grow up places where they don’t get exposure to other folks like themselves.
It’s more than theft. Because intentions matter. But, there’s also no legal framework for the prosecution.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think there needs to be an enhancement of some sort that recognises an offence, even if minor, was motivated by hate.
Right now, I associate the words “hate crime” with serious criminal behaviour that results in bodily harm or threats to personal safety or destruction of large amounts of property. I think it might need to stay that way to avoid watering down the term.
Rather, there should probably be a new category called something like “hateful anti-social behaviour” to refer to minor transgressions like stealing the LGBTQ books or things like calling all the LGBTQ people you encounter slurs and other forms of harassment.
I hear you. And honestly we need to be better about using the hate crime enhancer for violent crimes generally.
But, I’d prefer to live in a society that doesn’t tolerate hateful criminal behavior. If someone wants to call me a trans slur that sucks, but if someone spray painted hateful slurs on my property, I’d like that to be prosecuted with a more serious consequence than simple vandalism.
And, I have no idea how to frame it so that more violent offenses aren’t watered down. But, as I mentioned at the outset, we don’t use the enhancer often enough as it is. And maybe if we used it for less violent offenses, with smaller enhancers, we’d normalize using it more generally.
There it is. Thanks for the sanity check. I swear people go off half cocked if you aren’t 100% hive minding. The book theft is absolutely motivated by hatred, intolerance and probably repression against LGBTQ in some misguided attempt to Save the Children TM. I 100% agree they are looking to cause ignorance and indirectly that could lead to a person not getting information that could help them, but it’s not permanent damage and certainly caused no direct harm.
I hear you but there’s not a court in the land that would uphold book theft as a hate crime. And there are some heinous hate crimes that it would minimize by association (think eye rolling). In my town a guy got nearly destroyed by some drunk bar bros. His face was permanently broken up, he quit work at a friend’s place and as far as I know, left the country. That’s real hate with real impact And I could get behind considerjng targeted shit like this as hate-motivated crime, but then we need some sort of impact level and I have a feeling the fundies would turn it around to say they are being “hate crimed” when there’s a pride parade or some other nonsense…
Not a hate crime, but they could easily stack on criminal conspiracy and solicitation charges.
I get both sides of this not or is a hate crime but they make a good point that it is a crime motivated by hate of a specific people/group. So while the law doesn’t have hate theft listed, it does make sense people would argue it is a hate crime
Imagine doing shit like this and thinking history will remember you fondly.
“Are we the baddies?”
