This city of Alabama stands for a cultural war, with its public library in the center

The public library is one of the largest social buildings in Fairhope, ALA. Almost every day over the 40,000 square feet in the heart of the center, pensioners collect for book club in the Auditorium, teenagers play up chess upstairs, and toddlers learn their letters in story time. The reading room with lightly filled has a vaulted ceiling that portrays two owls over a book over a book over a book.

The library registers more than 180,000 annual visits, one of the highest figures in Alabama, in a city of 25,000. It is called Fairhope’s Taj Mahal.

Now it is also a battlefield. Residents have packed meetings of the city council and the library board and debate about books with sexual content or LGBTQ themes. Some require those books to be moved to the adult section. Others claim that it comes down to censorship and discrimination. The bitterness is similar to battles that take place in libraries throughout the country, as conservative parents and activists Challenge such books.

In March, the Fairhope conflict escalated when the state’s library board voted to pause financing to the library, unless the certain books have moved. Although some places and provinces in the country have moved to defend their own public libraries, the decision in Alabama was perhaps the first time that a local public library was the target of defending by a state government, said Jonathan Friedman, who leads our free opposition programs at the Nonprofit Pen America.

The conflict has created a heated gap in the city, about half an hour’s drive from Mobile in Baldwin County, on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. “We have people who are passionate on both sides of this subject – about many different topics, to be honest,” said Mayor Sherry Sullivan. “And I think if they are passionate about what they do, they don’t really give up.”

The fight in Fairhope is especially accused in view of the history. The city was founded in 1894 with the aim of creating a utopian community. The founders of Fairhope were devoted by Henry George, a 19th-century economist who saw private land ownership as the director of economic inequality.

They established a colony in accordance with his proposal that the country is owned by the community and rented to residents, business people and farmers. They wrote and received so many letters that their post office was known to process a heavy number of mail. And they opened one of the first public libraries in Alabama.

Today, Fairhopein Votes Republican in Diep Red Alabama President Trump won more than three-quarters of the votes cast in the city in November. But the faith of the settlers in the value of public goods and embrace of independent thinkers remain intertwined in the character of the city, which continues to attract artists, eccentric and writers. A local novelist, Sonny BrewerIf Fairhope claims more published authors per head of the population than anywhere else in America.

Fairhope’s library fight started about two years ago, when some parents were concerned about a representation of books for Pride Month in the Teen Section. Conservative groups organized and people started to submit forms to ask for an overview of titles such as “Water for Elephants”, “Parts and Hearts: A Kids (and Grown-ups) Guide to Transgender Transition” and “The Kite Runner.”

Brian Dasinger, a co-founder of the Faith Family Freedom Coalition of Baldwin County and a prominent critic of the library, sees the progressive establishment of the city today as largely irrelevant and said it was a twisted logic to think that “because Fairhope had been established at Freethope was being taken into account Indoctrinating and sexually explicit material.

The chapter of Baldwin County of a group called Read Freely Alabama organized supporters to ensure that they were also heard during public meetings. Elizabeth Williams, who leads the group, found inspiration in the story of Marie Howland, who established Fairhope’s first library in her house in 1900 and who wrote a novel that was banned by the Boston Public Library.

“I represent the side of intellectual freedom,” said Mrs. Williams. “We are determined for parental rights, because we believe that every parent has the right to decide what is suitable for his child, but not to decide for others.”

The city council has never included a resolution that suggested Mr Dasinger, which would have forbidden the purchase of books “that contained any content of sexual nature” unless they were limited to the adult section. The director of the library considered requesting 36 Books and decided not, except for a handful of fallen. The books remained on the shelves.

But opponents found a more receptive audience for the Alabama Public Library Service Board, which manages state and federal funds.

“I think we have absolutely a duty to ensure that our children are protected against sexually explicit material and that we give parents the leadership,” said John Wahl, chairman of the council who also leads the Republican party.

Last year, the Board judged code changes that prohibit libraries to place material that is “sexually explicit” in sections that are accessible to minors. Critics say that the label is subjective and vague.

In February, after Mr. Wahl had criticized the Fairhope library as’ out of hand ‘, more than 100 fairhope parents wrote in a letter that attempts to force the library to move certain material for the spirit of Fairhope’, whose founders’ were inspired by an idea in ‘.

During the meeting of the State Board in Montgomery in March, Rebecca Watson, a fairhope -parent, who leads the local chapter of Moms For Liberty, a conservative political organization, fragments from books she said, violated the policy, including ‘sold’, a novel about a nepalic girl who was forced to be forced to be forced

“This book gave me nightmares last night,” said Mrs. Watson. “I stayed up almost all night to read these books and I can’t imagine a child reading this in our library.”

The board voted 5 to 1 to pause the financing of the Fairhope library, around $ 20,000 for the rest of the tax year.

Although that amount only represents a fraction of the budget of around $ 1 million from the library, almost 90 percent of which are covered under the city of Fairhope, many parents were furious. An online crowdfunding campaign attracted national attention and quickly raised around $ 40,000 to cover state financing.

“I don’t like the fact that someone, only everyone, can go to Montgomery and can make some comments and cause a break in our financing, without any further investigation,” said Jack Burrell, the president of the city council, during a council meeting after the State Library’s vote. “That’s not America.”

Weeks after the decision of the State Council, Fairhope remains divided. Carlie Maridakis, 41, does not bring her 4-year-old and 6-year-old to the library, partly because she wants to take a position. She is worried that her children can come across sexual material while browsing and are mainly concerned about books with LGBTQ themes. She believes that the library has ignored parents as she has ignored.

“It has been about, for them:” Open and closed, this is a not -issue, “she said.

Mr Dasinger said in an interview that the results of the Fairhope presidential elections indicate that the majority of the community wants the quoted books to be moved. But some residents see no contradiction between their voice for Mr Trump and their support for the library.

One of them is Catherine King, 71, a director of the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation, an entity that has around 4,000 hectares in the city with a value of more than $ 800 million, with the inheritance of the founders of the city.

The company acts country to the city to create Fairhope’s Crown Jewel: a vast park on the water, where children splash in the dark waters of Mobile Bay. Mrs. King said it comes down on basic responsibility.

“Don’t tell me that I can’t read something,” she said. “I will make that decision for me and my child.”

After the financing break, Mr Wahl asked the library to move books with sexual content to the part of adults, in particular those eight titles quoted those parents had described during the state administration meeting. If the State Board is satisfied with the decisions, it could restore financing during the July meeting.

The Fairhope Library Board claims that it is in accordance with the State Code. During the regularly planned meeting of April, the members discussed two challenged titles, including ‘Sald’, which was on the List of Mr Wahl.

They voted to leave the book in the teenage destruction.