The Drag Queen Story Hour, pushed by the American Library Association, that has invaded libraries across the United States is raising serious questions about child protection protocol. Photographs have surfaced showing a drag queen, Carla Rossi, rolling around on the floor in full-body contact with minor children at the Multnomah County Library (MCL) in Oregon. The event appears to have happened last October and photographs were recently found on the library’s Flickr account.
Yes. On the @Flickr page for @MultCoLib, unless they deleted them already, in which case let me know. pic.twitter.com/IKzHN03Zdj
— Dan Kleinman (@SafeLibraries) July 2, 2019
With the spotlight on the Catholic Church for allowing abuse to go unreported or covered up for many years and the hypersensitivity to the #MeToo movement, are libraries ignoring basic safety measures?
In order to be a volunteer in the Catholic Church in America, child safety training is mandatory. “In accordance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (2002, updated in 2018), all priests and deacons must complete a Background Check and Safe Environment training. These must be renewed every three years.” That goes for volunteers too.
It includes basic safety precautions for the protection of children including a criminal background check, training to avoid hugs, offering “side-hugs” only, no lap-sitting, and to always have two adults with children at all times. Volunteers are further trained to look for signs of abuse and identify abusers before they can offend. No priest or volunteer in a Catholic Church would ever be rolling around on the floor with children lying on top of them in 2019. So, imagine my surprise to see these photos of a Drag Queen Story Hour at the MCL in Oregon circulating on Twitter showing a grown man, who was either contracted or volunteered to read stories to children, lying on the floor with the children sprawled out on top of him with full-body contact. The photographs were recently removed from the library’s Flickr account.
Now imagine that priests were reading stories to children in public buildings and were photographed rolling around on the floor with toddlers. Do you think there would be a great hue and outcry? I’m certain there would be, and deservedly so. But why is everyone completely silent about these men taking liberties with children all over the country?
Rossi isn’t the only queen acting inappropriately at these events. In Houston, it was discovered that two drag queens had criminal histories of child molestation and weren’t even supposed to be near schools or places where children go but had escaped the library director’s notice, and because he failed to do any background checks, the molesters were hired to read to children. Let that sink in. A Houston library allowed two sex offenders to read to children.
PJ Media reached out to MCL to ask what safety protocols they have in place for volunteers or employees who work with children. Jeremy Graybill, spokesperson for the library, refused to answer any specific questions about their policies or this event. He refused to explain why the photographs were removed. Instead, he sent a generic, rambling, non-answer.
We continually review existing policies to ensure that performers meet expectations to provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all. Presenters and performers are instructed to follow library behavior policies and rules of conduct that protect the interest and safety of presenters, volunteers, staff and library patrons. Parents and caregivers are present at every program.
The library will reflect on the feedback that members of the community have offered. We will consider the views and concerns expressed and work to ensure that Multnomah County Library holds itself to consistently high standards.
When asked for the behavior policy referenced and the feedback he has received, Graybill refused to respond. An online version of a behavior policy can be seen here and does not include child safety information. The volunteer manual, found here, has no specific information about any training for those working with children to ensure their safety. This is more evidence that libraries function as their own little kingdoms where they ignore common-sense safety measures that everyone else uses so that children aren’t in danger.
I spent three years investigating libraries for my first book, Shut Up! The Bizarre War That One Public Library Waged Against the First Amendment, proving that the American Library Association (ALA) puts children in danger for the express purpose of furthering the political goals of the far left. During that investigation, I discovered a woman, Toni Manning, whose daughter had been exposed to explicit hardcore adult videos at this very library. It’s hardly surprising that they are in the news again, refusing to protect children.
Manning was involved in a huge fight with MCL in 2006 when her ten-year-old daughter was exposed to explicit adult videos at the library and was subsequently put into therapy because of it. The library refused to stop people from watching this material in view of children. Not only that, but when Manning fought back and put out fliers to the community alerting them to what the library was doing, she was sued! This is a tactic that the ALA uses against parents who complain about the lack of safety for children in libraries. I was also sued for “defamation” for telling the truth about what dangers were lying in wait for kids in that library (SPOILER! I won and you can read all about it in my book).
This very library system, the Multnomah County Public Library, sued the United States government to keep filters off computers ensuring that anyone could access smut through their computers while still retaining federal funding. They ultimately lost in the Supreme Court ruling United States v. American Library Association in 2003 when SCOTUS ruled that no one has a First Amendment right to view explicit adult material in a public library and that filters are perfectly acceptable. Even so, many libraries under ALA control still refuse to use them with no concern for minors who may be exposed to inappropriate material or the illegal material that may be accessed on unfiltered computers.
The existence of these controversial Drag Queen Story Hours, pushed by the ALA, are dubious enough by themselves considering that public tax dollars are supporting them by use of a public building, but add to it the complete disregard that the libraries involved historically seem to have for child safety and you have a recipe for a total disaster. Why are these libraries not held to the same standards as public schools or churches, which must provide safety training and background checks for anyone working with children?
