Librarian

April 10, 2007.

St. Pete Times reports: TAMPA – Author and family therapist Chris Crutcher called politicians like state Sen. Ronda Storms, the former Hillsborough commissioner who successfully spearheaded a ban on county government’s recognition of gay pride, an embarrassment to their community.

“We have to always go after people that make decisions like these that leave people destroyed in their wake,” Crutcher said. “When the Ronda Storms of the world show up, people get together and start talking about what we have to do to get rid of bigotry.”

Crutcher traveled from Spokane, Wash., to speak at the University of South Florida on Tuesday. Though he’s heterosexual, Crutcher said he took the ban personally. He authored two books in the gay pride display at the
public library that captured Storms’ attention.

Crutcher has written books about a range of topics that young adults, gay and straight, struggle with, and said his books are banned or challenged at least six times a year.

Crutcher singled out one comment Storms made in discussions about the countywide ban, when she said she didn’t want to have to explain homosexuality to her then 6-year-old daughter had she seen the library display, which was in recognition of gay pride month.

“Give me a break,” Crutcher said. “What am I gonna tell my daughter? Nothing. There is nothing scary for a 6-year-old kid on that display. But there is something scary for a 6-year-old kid when she’s 20 to have to say there is a hater in her legacy.”

Crutcher said parents with beliefs like Storms’ make themselves unavailable when their children face situations that deal with sexuality. Children would rather talk with a stranger because they are afraid to disappoint their parents, he said.

Fighting discrimination…
…against GBLT Americans and free speech will be the topics of Chris Crutcher’s two day series of events in and around Tampa, FL April 9 and 10. His primary presentation will be at the University of South Florida at 2:00 pm on April 10 in the Traditions Hall Alumni Center. …And Ronda Storms, beware. You can’t legislate bigotry without opposition.

June 23, 2006.
On the anniversary of the banning–
a group re-creates the presentation that was taken down.

March 2006.
Library Journal awarded Bart Birdsall its “Mover and Shaker Award.”

October 2006. UNBANNED. By Amy Nestor.The documentary that rocked Hillsborough County Florida! Watch the informative documentary and see for yourself the ignorance and the discrimination.

August 15, 2005.
The Florida Library Association Executive Board resolved that the association will not hold conferences, meetings of its Executive Board, committees, or other association groups in Hillsborough County until the county commission rescinds the policy.

July 21, 2005

Hillsborough commissioners touched off a tempest last month when, without discussion, they distanced themselves from gay pride events. Wednesday, again without discussion, they quashed an effort to revisit the issue.

And they did so out of agenda order, while scores who showed up to speak on the issue were temporarily distracted by a gay rights rally outside.

Nadine Smith, leader of a gay and lesbian rights group, called the silent vote disrespectful, evidence that commissioners know their position is indefensible.

“There is victory in your silence,” said Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, in addressing commissioners at the end of the meeting. “I think your silence comes from an inability to justify what you have done.”

Commission Chairman Jim Norman said he decided to consider the issue out of order because County Center officers worried about their ability to keep the building secure with so many people lingering. The vote came shortly after the 10 a.m. gay rights rally began, not later in the day, as the agenda placement suggested.

“I did not want any at-risk situations to occur,” Norman said. “I’m always going to put public safety before other issues.”

It was an unusual step for a commission accustomed to drawing large crowds eager to weigh in on contentious issues. The commission has entertained standing-room-only crowds repeatedly in recent years, often setting up chairs in the County Center library to accommodate the overflow.

There were no chairs set up Wednesday.

The crowd came after commissioners received a request from the president of the Friends of the Library of Tampa-Hillsborough County Inc., who asked the board to review a June 15 vote banning gay pride acknowledgment by county government. That 5-1 vote, led by Commissioner Ronda Storms, followed a published account about the removal of a gay pride display at West Gate Regional Library.

Friends of the Library president Karen McClure called it “disturbing” that the board would “cease to acknowledge ideas of a segment of our community.”

Expecting the issue to come up later in the meeting, even McClure arrived after commissioners dispensed with it.

As was the case last month, Kathy Castor was the lone vote of dissent when the rest of the board voted simply to “receive and file” McClure’s letter without debate.

Castor said the June policy may violate state law that governs Hillsborough’s library system. The law puts decisions about library materials in the hands of an appointed board. Library rules may be amended by the commission, but only on recommendation of the county administrator, which didn’t happen in this case.

“That law was intentionally drafted that way to keep the meddling politicians out of the selection process for library materials,” Castor said during a break Wednesday.

The June 15 vote, which applies to the county generally and not only to libraries, has spawned protests by gay and lesbian rights groups and other organizations. It has received national media attention and commissioners have been inundated with e-mails from around the country….
Outside, Bart Birdsall, a Greco Middle School librarian who is gay, used a bullhorn to read from books on a gay pride display that was taken down at the West Gate Library. As Birdsall read, about a dozen people carrying rainbow flags and antiban signs marched in a circle around him.

Smith, of Equality Florida, was among them.

“This is about singling out a group of people for discrimination and putting the county’s seal of approval on that discrimination,” she told the crowd.

Wearing a name tag that read “Human Being,” she asked business owners who disagree with the county ban to place signs in their windows to let patrons know they support diversity.

June 16, 2005.
Hillsborough County, Florida bans county from recognizing gay pride

What began as a ban on library displays grows into a broad county policy.

The vote comes about a week after a story in the St. Petersburg Times noted that a book display recognizing Gay and Lesbian Pride Month was taken down at West Gate Regional Library after some library patrons complained. The story mentioned a similar exhibit at John F. Germany Library in downtown Tampa.
Books Ordered Removed From Display.

• My Father’s Scar by Michael Cart
• Hello, I Lied by M.E. Kerr
• Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block
• Girl Goddess, #9 by Francesca Lia Block
• Talk To Me: Stories and a Novella by Carol Dines
• Tomorrow Wendy: A Love Story by Shelley Stoehr
• Breaking Boxes by A.M. Jenkins
• My Heartbeat by Garret Freymann-Weyr
• Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
• Ironman by Chris Crutcher
• Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
• The Shell House by Linda Newberry
• A Face in Every Window by Han Nolan
• Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Diane Bauer
• Alice on the Outside by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• True Believer by Virginia Euewer Wolff
• The Car by Gary Paulsen
• Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aiden Chambers
• Razzle by Ellen Wittlinger
• Box Girl by Sarah Withrow
• Eight Seconds by Jean Ferris