When the National Association of Christian Lawmakers held its annual conference at Liberty University earlier this month, members of the organization held a “para-legislative session” at which state legislators and religious-right activists proposed and discussed various resolutions and proposed pieces of sample legislation.
Among those participating in this session was Arkansas state Sen. Dan Sullivan, who pledged to use the next state legislative session to strip funding for any library in the state that is affiliated with the American Library Association.
Sullivan has been seeking to cut library funding for a while, and while he has not succeeded in doing so yet, he was still quite pleased with a law that was recently signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders that allows for the removal of books and the possible prosecution of librarians for “disseminating a writing, film, slide, drawing, or other visual reproduction that is claimed to be obscene.”
“The libraries are an institution—often like higher ed—that are far left, and they have been a bastion of the left wing,” Sullivan told his fellow NACL members. “They’re the ones holding the drag queen shows. They’re the ones promoting Pride Month. Our county library last year had huge Pride signs and flags and books; this year, they backed that off and had very little because we took their money away.”
“You learn as a legislator really quick, if you want thing to change, take the money,” he added. “I love the libraries. They’re fantastic institutions. They’ve been taken over by the far left, and it’s time for us to take them back.”
“When we come back to session in two years, we’re going to eliminate all the funding for public libraries that have the American Library Association in their policy,” Sullivan vowed. “We’re going to take a shot at them because that’s where it’s coming from.”
This pledge was met with a round of applause from the other NACL attendees.
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