This from Michigan
Prosecutor Threatens Librarian with Prison Over LGBTQ Book
How absurd has the anti-LGBTQ backlash become?
I am not hard to find. If Mr. Miller wishes to arrest me, I am in my office working for the patrons and staff of the Lapeer District Library Monday through Friday.
— Lapeer District Library Director Amy Churchill
To threaten criminal charges against the judgment of a librarian who determines that a book is appropriate for viewing by the public is dangerous and perhaps even outrageous.
— Larry Dubin, emeritus law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy
How absurd have Republican efforts become to ban books and empty library shelves of Black and queer content? How absurd is the “groomer” propaganda conservatives wield to paint LGBTQ people as sexual predators?
This absurd: Lapeer County, Michigan Prosecutor John Miller, a Republican elected official, just threatened library director Amy Churchill with prison time. He reportedly told her he will charge her with a felony violation of a sex-predator sting law unless she removes an LGBTQ-themed book from adult-section library shelves.
Churchill says she will not cave to Miller’s unconstitutional and un-American threats, but he’s inflaming passions and putting librarians and ordinary queer citizens of Lapeer county in the crosshairs of violent rhetoric.
In my opinion, if anyone is guilty of a crime, Miller is. Here’s what’s going on:
Lapeer County Prosecutor John Miller demands Churchill remove ‘Gender Queer: a Memoir’ from shelves
According to
Pen America, Maia Kobabe’s
Gender Queer, often called a graphic novel despite being a highly personal illustrated memoir, was the most banned book in school libraries in 2022. The
American Library Association calls it America’s most challenged book.
Tens of thousands of
Goodreads users, however, rate the memoir as exceptionally valuable, awarding it almost 5 stars out of 5.
Goodreads editors describe
Gender Queer as a “cathartic journey of of self-identity,” in which Kobabe explores nonbinary gender and the “confusion of adolescent crushes.” The author describes grappling with coming out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Reviewers say the book is
“a useful and touching guide on gender identity — what it means and how to think about it — for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.”
The few negative reviews on Goodreads appear to come from readers ideologically opposed to transgender and/or nonbinary people, but that’s not what Miller focuses on. He says the memoir is “obscene,” a legal definition I’ll address in a moment.
Yes, a few of the illustrations are explicitly sexual, part of Kobabe’s frank recollections of adolescent angst and exploration. But the memoir, which I have read, is neither sexually titillating nor exploitative. The illustrations conservatives object to are not hyper-realistic, not designed to appeal to prurient interest. By that, I mean if somebody were looking for pornography, a few app swipes or mouse clicks would deliver.
Gender Queer would not.
In fact,
Gender Queer is much less sexually detailed than sex-education manuals that can be found in every library in the U.S. So what’s the fuss? Those sex education manuals are about cisgender, straight sexuality, which Miller apparently finds unobjectionable, or at least he hasn’t threatened librarians with prison over them. Only when books depict queer sexuality does he claim shelving them is a criminal act.
Miller claims ‘Gender Queer’ is predatory in some vague way he can’t explain
He’s threatening Churchill with part of the Michigan criminal code often used in sting operations to protect children from predatory adults. The law he’s citing criminalizes acts that incite people under 16 “to commit an immoral act, to submit to an act of sexual intercourse or an act of gross indecency or to any other act of depravity or delinquency.”
Lawyers who have commented on Miller’s threat say he is
grossly misrepresenting the statute and that charging Churchill would be an absurd overreach. Scholars say Miller’s threat is more than just legally baseless: it’s a plain violation of First Amendment speech protection, an example of a government official abusing his power to chill unquestionably protected speech.
Churchill faces little danger of arrest, but even if Miller somehow convinced a judge to issue an arrest warrant, the case would be thrown out of court so fast his eyes would spin.
And that’s a huge problem, because Miller knows what he’s doing.
He’s a highly educated lawyer.
He undoubtedly knows he could never convict Churchill under that enticement statute. Furthermore, he must know that
Gender Queer does not meet the federal
Miller obscenity standard, which consists of the following three questions, all of which must be answered ‘yes’ for a federal judge to rule that art is obscene and therefore unprotected:
- Whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, ‘taken as a whole,’ appeals to ‘prurient interest.’
- Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law.
- Whether the work, ‘taken as a whole,’ lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
He must know that acting under the color of law to pressure librarians to censor Gender Queer therefore violates the U.S. Constitution.
He just doesn’t care. He’s perfectly fine abusing his office to for partisan purposes — in a manner that is inciting anti-LGBTQ hatred in Lapeer County.
This problem is not isolated to Michigan. PEN America’s director of the U.S. Free Expression Program, Kate Ruane,
told The Advocate yesterday that Miller’s intimidation campaign is typical of how elected officials abuse politica power all over the country:
Unfortunately, the situation in Lapeer is not unique: officials are using threats of punishment all over the country to intimidate librarians into censoring books. There are legitimate channels to object to specific books in libraries, but obviously, using the office of a county prosecutor to threaten criminal charges against a librarian should be off the table.
And the anti-LGBTQ hatred just keeps rolling along
Yesterday, directly because of Miller’s ridiculous arrest rhetoric, a meeting of the
Lapeer District Library Board turned into a frightening, hateful circus. Directors had to house the meeting in a much larger venue than they normally use.
Lapeer residents showed up en masse to demand that the board remove Gender Queer from libraries, and residents who showed up to speak against censorship told reporters that the raw hatred they experienced — the shockingly informed vitriol directed against LGBTQ people — was overwhelming and frightening.
I’ve been writing about how political rhetoric is driving spikes of anti-queer violence, and this is a perfect example of how that works. Miller’s hate rhetoric will have consequences, will cause real harm for real, innocent people. He must know that.
All over a book shelved in the adult sections of Lapeer libraries? All over a book that is far less sexually explicit than many other books in the library system? All over a memoir that is an intensely personal exploration of queerness?
Miller’s rhetoric is inciting witch-hunt mentality, is fomenting anger that could easily morph into violence, even mob violence. If anyone is the criminal here, Miller is.
Update: 3/19/23 — The same day I published this story, Miller told reporters at Bridge Michigan that he never intended to charge Churchill with a crime, that he was only trying to “educate the public” about Gender Queer. LGBTQ and legal-ethics advocates in Michigan say his statement constitutes an admission that he abused the powers of his office. A formal ethics complaint is expected soon.
How absurd has the anti-LGBTQ backlash become?
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