Catholics in Virginia, Ohio Leading Drives to Ban LGBTQ+ Books in Public Libraries

In at least three places in the United States, conservative Catholics are involved in campaigns to remove books with LGBTQ+ characters from public libraries, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

In Front Royal, Virginia, Samuels Public Library has become a battleground for this issue. A group called “Clean Up Samuels Library,” which is considered to be composed primarily of Catholics, successfully petitioned ​​Warren County’s Board of Supervisors to hold back funding from the library. The town is where the right wing Christendom College, a Catholic institution, is located.

In their campaign targeting the Samuels Library, the group called for the removal of certain books with LGBTQ-positive representation, self-acceptance, bisexual characters, and more. Clean Up Samuels Library is especially concerned with children and young adults being exposed to books with LGBTQ+ content, stating that it is a “risk for Catholic children.”

NCR reported, “Clean Up Samuels began their public campaign with an invitation to an  event entitled ‘Beer, Babysitting, and Cleaning Up the Samuels Library,’ to fill out requests to remove library books with LGBTQ+ content.”  The report said that public perception grew that Catholics were the primary supporters of the effort. NCR stated that “many [Catholic] community members expressed concern that Clean Up Samuels’ combative brand of politics would come to represent all Catholics, even as they tried to push back against that narrative.”

In an effort to oppose this narrative, a group of 42 local Catholics signed a letter stating their support for Samuels’ library when it was under threat of closure. The letter, which supported funding the library, states the following:

“We, as Catholic parents concerned for the good of the entire Warren County community, urge you to release all the funding designated in this year’s budget for Samuels Public Library. We believe that the closure of the library, even if only temporary, would deprive the citizens of Warren County of a resource that is essential for our flourishing as a community.”

Samuels Library is not the only place where Catholics are  organizing, and sometimes leading, efforts to ban LGBTQ content in public libraries. As NCR reported,​​“Fringe Catholic groups throughout the country have also organized around the removal of LGBTQ+ content from public libraries.”

In St. Mary’s, Kansas, city officials who are practicing Catholics have threatened the library’s lease because of its LGBTQ+ content, and in Steubenville, Ohio, Catholics connected to the Franciscan University of Steubenville are pursuing efforts to remove LGBTQ+ content from the children’s sections of libraries.

Steven Millies, a professor at Catholic Theological Union, explored a broader context around this increased effort to ban LGBTQ-related books. Millies said that the fights over library books are part of a “natural reorganization that follows Dobbs,” the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case which overturned Roe vs. Wade. A part of this reorganization, according to Millies, comes with LGBTQ+ issues standing in place of abortion issues to “to animate fundraising and organizing for conservatives.”

Catholics should avoid this right wing politicking. Indeed, as Eileen Grady, Samuels Library’s interim director, told NCR of the book ban effort:

“This is not the Catholic Church or the teachings of the church [I was raised with.] We were raised to love one another. . .We have to learn to live together regardless of our beliefs, regardless of our personal preferences. . .We have to respect one another, and I think that’s key to a civilized democratic society.”

—Liam Myers (he/him), New Ways Ministry, February 29, 2024