NEWS // War on Words

Moon library board members fear township leaders intent on censoring LGBTQ books

BY JORDANA ROSENFELD // JORDANA@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

MOON SUPERVISORS seem to be exercising new influence over the township’s independent public library system following conservative backlash to a children’s book featuring drag queens. Although the library is an independent nonprofit organization, township supervisors have the sole authority to appoint library trustees. Typically, Library Board vice president Kathleen Emmerling says, supervisors have deferred to library trustees, allowing them to recruit, interview, and select their own candidates for membership. But since December 2021, Emmerling says, supervisors have installed four new trustees without consulting them, and many appear to have no interest or expertise in library operations. “We had not interviewed [the supervisors’ appointees]. We had not been given their letters of interest,” Emmerling, a trustee since 2016, tells Pittsburgh City Paper of two appointments made in January 2022. Just weeks before, the library had been forced to close temporarily due to violent threats. It all started with a routine Facebook post, Emmerling says. “Every single picture book that comes into the library is scheduled on Facebook and Instagram to be the Book of the Day, so all picture books are treated equally.” On Dec. 8, 2021, the featured book was The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, a play on “The Wheels on the Bus” written by Lil Miss Hot Mess, founder of the national nonprofit Drag Queen Story Hour. Drag Queen Story Hour “uses drag to share love and acceptance through inclusive storytelling,” according to its website. The post garnered comments claiming the children’s book was inappropriate and accusing the library of sheltering pedophiles. After a far-right news site published a “Groomer Alert” targeting the library for having the book in their collection, library staff began receiving the violent threats, largely from individuals residing outside Pennsylvania. The Facebook post has since been deleted. According to minutes from a library trustees meeting shortly after the incident, the Moon Township Public Library is one of 15 in the county with at least one copy of the book. Emmerling tells City Paper that The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish was never physically on display in the Moon Township Public Library due to its overwhelming popularity. “Something that we have continually had trouble getting across to our colleagues on the Board of Supervisors is, unless your child is on Facebook, they have never seen that book in the Moon Township Public Library,” Emmerling says. “The reason it was never on display at the library is because it was constantly checked out. There was a waitlist for that book, and it never made it back to the shelves. It always went back to another patron.” During a Dec. 20, 2021 supervisors meeting, about a dozen Moon residents offered public comment on the library and its collection. The majority

PHOTO: COURTESY OF HACHETTE