Batavia library debate heats up

A one–two punch came in the local press yesterday as pro-lifers were labeled “nitwits”, “nincompoops”, “thought-police”, and the oh-so-condescending “misguided”. Jeff Ward in the Batavia Sun and Laura Berman in the Chicago Sun-Times both ran columns laying into Batavia citizens for daring to speak up about the controversial material being recommended to their children by tax-funded community institutions. Which is why it’s so important that every concerned citizen of Batavia show up to the next library board of trustees meeting on July 15 from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Batavia Public Library (map) where the issue will finally be decided. With all the name calling, the truly remarkable thing is that they both accuse the concerned Batavia parents of things like hindering our children from “…learn[ing] how to participate in intelligent discourse.” I was unaware that intelligent discourse was achieved by juvenile mudslinging or watching sexually explicit cartoons. Not only that, but teenwire, the controversial Planned Parenthood website in question, is billed as “a beacon of light that can illuminate the darkest days of adolescence.” A beacon of light? Really? Talking reproductive organs will illuminate our teens darkest days? This overblown rhetoric is precisely the reason that the library board of trustees needs to hear from intelligent, rational citizens who simply believe that the library ought not to recommend as good and trustworthy material which a large portion of the community feels is offensive. Despite the continual and willful misrepresentation in the press, there are no cries for censorship here. No one is demanding that the material be banned, only that the library remain objective on this controversial issue.