CV NEWS FEED // The Montana State Library Commission has announced its separation from the American Library Association following the ALA’s announcement of its new president last year.
Emily Drabinski, a self-described Marxist, was elected to serve as president of the ALA in April 2022.
Following the announcement, Drabinski wrote in a now-deleted tweet “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is president elect of ALA. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity.”
According to a report from their latest meeting, the Montana State Library Commission voted to formally disassociate themselves from the ALA, saying their “oath of office and resulting duty to the Constitution forbids association with an organization led by a Marxist.”
Drabinsky tweeted in response to the commission’s decision, writing: “That is not the Montana—or Montanans—I know.”
This past June, the Daily Montanan wrote that the commission would “consider withdrawing” from ALA over concerns surrounding the new president.
The outlet further reported Montana library commissioner Tammy Hall as calling Drabinski’s tweet “very disturbing” before continuing to say that she would like to break from the ALA as soon as possible in order to communicate to the organization “that this is not serving the purposes of what [the ALA] need[s] to be doing.”
In a November 2022 interview, Drabinski responded to concerns over her tweet saying “it’s very much who I am and shapes a lot of how I think about social change and making a difference in the world. But of course, I tweeted it into the middle of an extremely fractured society, one where we have the rise of an extremist right that has come for everything I care about.”
She further addressed concerns from parents over children having access to sexually explicit content, saying “that’s between you and your kid and the way that you’re parenting.” Drabinski said she would advocate for the books’ presence on library shelves and leave the rest up to parents.
“It just isn’t something the state needs to be involved in,” she said.
The Montana commission reportedly considered the ramifications of leaving the ALA in their decision. Commission Vice Chairperson Peggy Taylor said the Commission pays the ALA in the late fall, while staff members estimated the state library’s dues to the association to be less than $10,000.
With the recent vote, Montana will become the first state to withdraw from the ALA.
CatholicVote Vice President Joshua Mercer responded to the decision, saying “Let’s hope that Montana is the first of many states to untangle themselves from the American Library Association.”
“Blinded by their gender ideology,” he added,” the ALA is actively promoting graphic pornographic books not just to adults … but to children. These materials are so nasty that it’s illegal to show what they are on TV. But these librarians want your children to have access to them.”
