NCW Libraries Adopts Display Policy, LGBTQ+ Materials, Displays Will Stay
Then board member Nancy Churchill lodged a formal complaint against NCW Libraries Executive Director Barbara Walters and announced loss of capital grant for a new library in Republic
The February board of trustees meeting for NCW Libraries was a dramatic affair that saw a major pushback against a group of Ferry County residents and a board member who want the Pride flag and LGBTQ+ displays and materials out of their public library.
After the board voted to adopt a display policy allowing for LGBTQ+ displays and materials to remain unchanged that board member, Nancy Churchill, then lodged a formal complaint against Executive Director Barbara Walters and announced that Washington State Senator Shelly Short was revoking her support of a capital grant to build a new library in Republic over the “controversy” regarding Pride flags and displays at the Ferry County branch.
The NCW Libraries system operates public libraries in Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Okanogan and Ferry counties in North Central Washington – a region roughly the size of the state of Maryland.
The group Churchill has been supporting call themselves the Republic Library Changemakers and last June they started calling for the removal of the Pride flag and LGBTQ+ displays from the Republic branch. They said that the rainbow flag and materials celebrating LGBTQ+ leaders and culture made some community members feel “unsafe” and “unwelcome.”
They have also used unfounded and divisive rhetoric like claiming the Republic librarian is trying to “groom” children with the displays, and you can read more about the backstory here:
The repeated calls for removal of the Pride flag and LGBTQ+ displays and the slanderous claims the Changemakers have used resulted in backlash from other parts of the Ferry County community.
Those folks have formed the Ferry County Gay-Straight Alliance in direct response and started a petition to support their librarian and oppose the removal of the Pride flag that had 100 signatures – or 10% of Republic’s population – as of Feb. 20.
Members of the group also drove more than three hours from Republic to attended the board meeting in person and speak during public comments time. Others attended online and also spoke out against the Changemakers’ campaign of divisiveness and lies, as they see it.
The first person to speak was Marcella Lewis, a former RN and mother of three.
“A local group, the Changemakers, has been attempting to remove the Pride flag from our library in Republic through coercion, threatening funding,” she said. “Rampantly spreading disinformation to further their agenda.”
She said her goal with her three minutes of time was to clarify what the Pride flag does and does not represent and to explain why it’s important to their community.
“They have maintained that the Pride flag is exclusionary in nature. That it is a means of grooming children and that it is a political symbol,” she said. “They have compared it to the Nazi flag.”
What it actually represents is diversity, hope, inclusion, love and safety, Lewis said. It’s not a political symbol – it’s a humanitarian one that is all-inclusive.
“Their accusations that the Pride flag is a method of grooming is false,” she said. “And their use of the term is grossly inaccurate. By definition, sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a vulnerable person to lower their inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse.”
Displaying the Pride flag forms a human connection based in compassion and acceptance, not an emotionally-corrupt connection rooted in sexual misconduct, she said.
Then she told the board about her 11-year-old son, who has been battling an extremely-rare form of brain cancer since he was 10.
“He knows the physical and emotional pain of facing death,” she said. “The heroism of battling an unseen monster and he knows the judgement from others as he now lives with disabilities. He’s one of the most amazing humans I know. Caring, compassionate, wise and so very funny. He’s also gay.”
She said her dream for him is to live in a world of acceptance. When so many of his dreams have been taken by cancer, she said she desperately wants to realize his goals without living in fear of oppression.
“To him the Pride flag symbolizes safety and acceptance. To him and so many others it offers hope of a better future,” she said. “There’s already so much hate, ignorance and discrimination in this world removal of a humanitarian symbol such as a Pride flag would only add to that damaging atmosphere.”
In closing she implored the board to maintain a policy that allows for the display for the Pride flag in NCW Library branches.
You can watch and listen to her full public comment here: