To the editor:
There's an air of calm that finally can be felt during meetings of the board of the Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County. It's an atmosphere not felt since July 2022. That's when a small group of ultra -conservative, traditional Catholics decided that they were offended by books geared toward the LGBTQIA+ community and began a campaign to have them removed from the library system. What followed were petition drives, slurs against gay and trans people and yelling, lots of yelling.
Our local chapter of the National Organization for Women, also known as Ohio Valley NOW, took note and made the decision that we would take a stand in support of inclusion of that material in the library's collection.
The debate went on month after month, even though the library board twice issued statements that it intended to ensure that all community members had access to material of their choice.
Fast forward 18 months and the board eventually made significant changes to the public comment process in its meetings. Those included limiting the public comment session length to 30 minutes, with a three-minute limit for each speaker. More importantly, the comment period now takes place after the regular business meeting instead of before.
What a difference those few changes make.
They went into effect with the December meeting and I attended that session as well as this week's January meeting. What I found was there was no longer a large amount of proponents or opponents there to speak, so both sessions were calm and respectful. In fact, I was the only one to make comments, though another person issued a written statement in support of material that includes stories of the LGBTQIA+ community.
I spoke again in favor of the board's inclusive position and made sure to note an important statistic that answers the opponents' accusation that the library system supports a biased book collection. The truth is that it does; except not in the way that the opponents want you to believe. Our library system's collection is biased in favor of heterosexually-themed books, which number about 60,000. The number of books with a homosexual theme? Just over 60, which averages out to about a mere 1 percent of the entire collection.
In the end, representation matters, even it makes some uncomfortable.
When it comes to children, straight, gay or trans, all need to read about life and see successful role models. It helps to validate them and isn't validation what we humans all want and need?
Supporting gay and trans rights is one of the core issues of the National Organization for Women and, as president of Ohio Valley NOW, I am committed to remaining an ally to the library board and its inclusion policy. It's the right thing to do.
Marjie DeFede
Rayland