12小时前

Theft or civil disobedience? 16 volumes go missing after Shelbyville church urges members to check out, never return library books about LGBTQ+ people

Theft or civil disobedience? • Kentucky Lantern

A local church is urging its members to permanently remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes.

Pamela Wilson Federspiel, who has been director of the library in downtown Shelbyville for 34 years, says the action is tantamount to “stealing.”

But three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville defend what they call an “act of civil disobedience.”

OpenChristian @lemmy.ca

Maeve @kbin.earth

11小时前

Theft or civil disobedience?

kentuckylantern.com /2025/08/18/theft-or-civil-disobedience/

46 评论

I've worked in libraries and this isn't a new tactic. The funny thing to me is that the library will almost always rebuy the missing book unless they were planning on removing it anyway, so the net result is a signal to the publishers to print more LGBTQ books.
- This is the butterfly flutter that brings about the first trans president and cements the USA as the queerest place on Earth, a country so gay that none dare challenge us.
I'm not sure what the "or" is for. Acts of civil disobedience are generally illegal or close to it. This is theft and civil disobedience, though not one I agree with (nor do I think it would be particularly effective, tbh). But something being civil disobedience doesn't make it not illegal or not wrong it's just the reasoning behind doing it.
So much for “Thou shalt not steal.”
But then, the most ardent believers do the most cherry picking with The Bible.
- Reading the bible, at least the old testament, it's pretty obvious that the commandments generally apply only towards your fellow kin (that is, another devout person of the religion). Everybody else is usually fair game (for example, during war with an outside tribe you could [should] do whatever - murder, rape, kidnap, steal, etc.)
- Even if they followed JESUS himself, they'd love God and then treat everyone else the way they would want to be treated.
  Fake Christians, imho
  (I'm an atheist)
I wonder how long it would take for them to cry foul if a group did the same thing for all of the Christian-themed books in the libraries...
- Only one way to find out.
- I mean, they open their doors every week to allow all who want to worship with them to enter into their space and share resources. Most places have prayer books and hymnals just laying around for all to use. Those items certainly wouldn't be expected to "walk away" typically, but it sure would be inconvenient for the churchgoers of that establishment if that were to start happening, I'd imagine. And the staff would have to replenish volumes to ensure they have enough on-hand. Every single week, this happens. If it's the church causing the pain that happens to start wondering where all the spare books went, that's gonna be a bigger statement than the library books going missing. Guess who will be happy to provide a general summary of all the info that suddenly disappeared from the libraries? If you guessed The Church Spoken Of Earlier, you see where I'm going...
  The library might not be the target you are seeking, is all I'm saying. They are usually staffed by very nice and nerdy people with small budgets and a desire to help their communities have equitable access to information.
  
  Are you saying I should take those bibles from the Jackasses that stand in front of my university science building doors every semester? Maybe ask for the whole box? I wonder if bibles are recyclable lol
  
  The difference is that the church would just pass the credit card reader around and get all new bibles every week. And they can throw in a little underage hooker for the priest, as a treat
I'd say it's both, but for a hateful and regressive cause that I despise.
Steal the bibles from their pews. Steal the after-service refreshments and give them to the homeless.
This is the Reformation Church of Shelbyville, KY.
It sure would be a shame if the bibles they leave out every day went missing.
Shocked by this. The pastor seems like a great guy with totally normal opinions.
- Sounds like they're this far --><-- away from honor killing their daughters.
- What is with racists not understanding that their mixed race grandkids would probably look like their mixed race grandkids‽
- Yeah.... totally stable genus
This would be a good charity that sees what books have been missing, buy them and just drop them in the library return box. Also, picket that church and dig into the pastor's dealings with their community. I bet they have secrets.
The library will just bill them after a year. What idiots.
- And then ban the people from the library.
  
  they would find out if they could read
  
  Most libraries wolnt let you check out more if you have overdue books. Also fairly certain it dings your credit if they sell the debt.
- Yeah but it's a year. They consider that a win.
I mean, the consequence is generally not being allowed to checkout more books.
It’s not even considered petty larceny.
It would be hilarious if you were able to sum everything up and roll it into a RICO or something. I just don’t think it would hold up.
Civil disobedience is a peaceful way to protest unfair laws when the regular methods of changing the law are too restricted or too slow to protect the civil rights of citizens. Civil disobedience in this case would be refusing to check out or read books that they find objectionable, if the government were to mandate that they be read.
You could make the argument that government is mandating this content if public schools assign it to students, but there is no real punishment under the law for rejecting a school assignment. It’s that they don’t want YOU to have access to this information, which is the opposite of civil disobedience: oppression. If the government were to mandate the removal of this content, as these citizens would like, the act of disobedience would be to read the books.
This is stealing from a public library.
- This is the best description I've seen yet. It's censorship at best and criminal imho.
Just send a bill to the church for the books. If they don't pay, you sue them.
If you ever come across one of those Gideon bibles in a hotel or similar, do similar.
- Gideons actually encourages people to take those bibles, giving away Bibles is kind of their whole schtick.
  Sure, if enough people do it, maybe eventually the idiots donating to it will run out of money, but more likely they'd just think that what they're doing is working really well and use brag about it to get even more people to donate to them.
- Steal the Book of Mormons from the Marriott hotels too lol
  
  Replace it with a Quoran. It's basically the same thing.
- Or even in a backwoods Kentucky church, perhaps.
This tracks as shelbyville always advocated for cousin marriage, leading to the eventual rift with Jebediah Springfield.
Shelbyville? Seriously?
If I had fuck you money, I would just put a dump-truck load of LGBTQ+ themed books in front of their church entrances.
@MicroWave The library should hit then with fines and interest for every day they aren't returned.
Nah, don't give em an inch. Theft of property is, by it's very nature, a criminal act. Absolutely does not qualify as civil disobedience in any way. Worse it perverts the meaning of that term.

46 评论