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.”
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If I had fuck you money, I would just put a dump-truck load of LGBTQ+ themed books in front of their church entrances.
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.
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…
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.
Yeah, but that would require actually going into a church on a regular basis.
Headphones and watch videos? Plus a lot of them have juice, coffee and snacks!
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
And who gives that money? The people that support the church. Who doesn’t pay that money? The tax payers who already bought books once for the library. That’s the real difference. Instead of everyone footing the bill for this nonsense, imagine a world where the problem is mitigated with ONE EASY TRICK.
Edit to add: stealing from the library is just an ugly move, that’s all I’m saying. Libraries are learning institutions.
Theft and destruction of books is bad, period. Even fucking mein kampf should be allowed to exist (with context).
But if the goal is to actually make it go away? Churches will just fleece Those People and The People Who Don’t Want To Antagonize Those People.
No, the church supporters take a tax deduction that leads to everyone still footing the bill.
Good. Make them spend more money.
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
Absolutely. As many as possible. Then bin em.
The thin pages sure do make a nice tinder for the campfire.
I’ve seen them used more often as rolling papers.
You mean rolling papers?
And toilet paper.
You don’t want to smoke the ink
But then how will I feel the Holy Spirit inside of me?
cough cough
Speak for yourself
Only one way to find out.
That’s the spirit!
They wouldn’t give a shit if the library burnt down.
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.
That’s why you take it and throw it in the trash (somewhere else).
Steal the Book of Mormons from the Marriott hotels too lol
Replace it with a Quoran. It’s basically the same thing.
Might as well. Never read it myself. I might eventually
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
If they could read, they probably wouldn’t be so bigoted and angry about books
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.
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But if three or more of them are doing it, then it’s criminal gang activity. If one of them sold the books and donated the money to the church, the pastor could be charged with a class c felony.
Just send a bill to the church for the books. If they don’t pay, you sue them.
Charge them late fees and use the funds to buy more copies. Make them required to have a debit card on file in order to check out more if they have more than 5 late books.
This is the Reformation Church of Shelbyville, KY.
It sure would be a shame if the bibles they leave out every day went missing.
Those pews look pretty comfy too.
Sure would be a shame if the place burned to the fucking ground.
This tracks as shelbyville always advocated for cousin marriage, leading to the eventual rift with Jebediah Springfield.
Shelbyville? Seriously?
Shocked by this. The pastor seems like a great guy with totally normal opinions.
Yeah… totally stable genus
What is with racists not understanding that their mixed race grandkids would probably look like their mixed race grandkids‽
Sounds like they’re this far --><-- away from honor killing their daughters.
I like how his handle is named after unstable material that is fun to watch violently explode when it’s bothered enough.
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)
Fake Christians, imho
Nah, these are real Christians. Don’t make their fallacious arguments for them.
Nope definitely fake. Take your anti-theisitic edgelord nonsense back to r/atheism if you wanna paint people with a broad brush
They need to change the name of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy to “no true Christian” as it makes a lot more sense these days…
You do realize that extremists are louder than the majority of the group right?
I was raised in the group, I am intimately aware of what they believe.
Again. I don’t care that you had a wacko creationist church when you were a kid. That’s not what most Christians believe
Source: Was also raised Christian and so were most people in Western Countries
I know a (very) few who walk the walk.
This are the only ones I would give the benefit of the doubt to
I know a (very) few who walk the walk.
Right. Exactly. When the majority of the people of a religion behave a certain way, that’s common trait of the religion. “Not walking the walk” is about as Christian as it gets.
American Evangelicals are not the majority of Christians, even though American exceptionalism makes them view themselves as such
As an imperfect, trying-my-best Christian, thank you for sticking up for us, outnumbered and doing our best in this dark world whilst getting false-flagged by hate-cults since the beginning.
It’s safe to say we genuinely love you for it. <3
Take good care. :)
I recognize that you are out there (hot take, I know)
There’s no hate quite like Christian love.
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.
Civil disobedience is a peaceful way to protest unfair laws when the regular methods of changing the law are 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 they 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.
