(LifeSiteNews) — A Florida county commission recently voted against renewing its annual membership with the notoriously left-wing American Library Association (ALA).
During a September 26 budget hearing, leaders of a county commission in central Florida agreed to cut its funding of the national organization, which has been under fire in recent years for promoting the LGBT agenda, including sexually explicit drag queen story hours.
“The Hernando County Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to cancel the county’s annual dues to the ALA after CFC [Christian Family Coalition] Florida joined forces with Hernando parental rights advocates to speak out against the ALA’s aggressive LGBT grooming agenda,” CFC Florida announced in a September 29 Facebook post.
“We’re delighted that Hernando County has agreed to become the second Florida county this month to cut ties with the ALA and their disgusting agenda,” the statewide chapter’s founder and executive director Anthony Verdugo said, per the release. “CFC Florida is proud to have taken the lead in this very important fight to get counties across the state to join the national movement to defund the ALA and protect Florida’s children from their demented LGBT activist leadership.”
The decision comes just two weeks after the Citrus County Commission made the same decision to rescind its funding of the ALA. As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, part of the vote to cut ties with the organization was encouraged by statements made by director Emily Drabinski in which she explained that her self-identity of being a “Marxist lesbian” was “really important to me.”
Citizens, commissioners voice opposition to leftwing ideologies promoted by ALA
During the hearing, citizens were given the opportunity to voice their opinions on the issue. All who spoke about the ALA echoed the position of revoking the annual $300 from the county’s budget, citing the need to protect children from sexually explicit materials and radical ideologies.
“We proudly stand before you all today to ask that Hernando County join Citrus County in leading the way in Florida by defunding the American Library Association and also blocking free donations to our local libraries made by the ALA, if that is possible,” a representative of Moms for Liberty said.
He noted that, since Drabinski’s election as director last year, the organization has gone “out of its way” to increase drag queen story hours across the country and urge member libraries to block conservative publishing company Brave Books from hosting a nationwide family-friendly library event.
Another concerned citizen pointed out to the commission that the books endorsed by the ALA “promote gender bending ideas, masturbation and the normalization of pedophilia.”
“I remember going to school, reading books in the public library, and they encouraged me to be the person I am today,” one woman said. “We need to get our heads straight, and our leaders here in the United States of America need to get it together.”
“What we’re teaching our children, what we are encouraging them to [do] and what we’re showing them today is creating a lot of ills in our society,” she continued, finishing her comments by sharing that her friend’s son has “had the operation” to “transition” and has “tried to commit suicide five times because he really didn’t know what he was doing.”
The motion to remove funding was made immediately after public comments and received an instantaneous second, followed by applause from the public.
“I think it’s ironic that this organization is called the American Library Association [because] this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values and principles,” commissioner Jerry Campbell said. “And these same religious freedoms that this country was founded on are the freedoms that this organization and others are looking to eliminate.”
Commissioner Brian Hawkins agreed with his colleague, adding that “the one good thing that came out of covid” was that “parents became ultimately involved with their children.” After realizing what was being taught by the public school system, parents began “to fight the good fight,” about which Hawkins said, “I hope that this continues to last.”
But Hernando County citizens and leaders are not the only ones to take a stand against the ALA’s shameless promotion of gender ideology. Across the nation, parents are protesting the sexual indoctrination of their children while leaders are taking action to ensure protection for their most vulnerable citizens.
In July, Missouri parents sounded the alarm about a school district’s efforts to stock libraries with sexually explicit books. The parents were fighting to get at least 80 books removed from the shelves. Another instance last year ended with a Virginia judge ruling that two such books were inappropriate to distribute to children in school.
More recently, the state of Texas officially exited the ALA in a move described as a “huge win” by Rep. Brian Harrison. Idaho, Mississippi, Montana and Wyoming had previously dissented the Marxist motivations of the organization.
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