It’s bad enough that legislators in many states are introducing – and in some cases passing – laws that promote book banning in public schools and libraries. It’s even more alarming that some extremists are taking matters into their own hands in ways that are truly disturbing.
In Beachwood, Ohio, an unnamed man is accused of checking out 100 books on Jewish history, African American history and LGBTQ+ themes from the Cuyahoga County Public Library Beachwood branch and setting them on fire.
Reportedly, the man posted a video of himself burning the books on Gab, a social media site known for its extremist content. Local police are investigating the matter, and an interfaith group, local political leaders and others have condemned the act.
Sadly, attempts to deny people access to information by targeting library books have happened before. In 1998, Pastor Robert Jeffress, a prominent Christian Nationalist leader, was leading a Baptist church in Wichita Falls, Texas, when a member brought him two LGBTQ-themed books, Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate, that the congregant had checked out of the public library. Jeffress didn’t set the books on fire, but he confiscated the tomes and refused to return them.
In 2018, Paul Dorr, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ extremist in Orange City, Iowa, checked four LGBTQ-themed books out of the public library and made a video of himself setting them on fire. Dorr posted the video to Facebook. As he tossed the books into the fire, he could be heard remarking, “I cannot stand by and let the shameful adults at the Orange City Library Board bring the next group of little children into their foul, sexual reality without a firm resistance.”
Greg Locke, a Christian Nationalist pastor in Tennessee, held a massive burning of books and other materials in February 2022. Locke invited people to bring book, DVDs, CDs and any materials promoting “witchcraft.”
“We have a constitutional right and a biblical right to do what we’re going to do tonight,” Locke said. “We have a burn permit, but even without one a church has a religious right to burn occultic materials that they deem are a threat to their religious rights and freedoms and belief systems.” (A few years earlier, Locke also had burned a copy of AU VP of Strategic Communications Andrew L. Seidel’s book The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American.)
In Beachwood, people have rallied to raise money to replace the books that were destroyed. That’s heartening, but it’s a shame they had to do that. This type of extremism has no place in a free country, and our laws need to make that clear.
Photo: Nazi soldiers and civilians at a mass book burning in Germany, 1933. Getty Images.
