Opinion: We Didn’t Choose this Fight But We’re Not Going to Stop Fighting It

By Bradley Roemer

Edited on 3/17/2025: Changed the percentage of LGBTQ+ challenged books from 97% to 91%

I think this is a good time to take a step back, or maybe it’s to the side, to put some things into perspective. There are probably some people who look at the content published by the Columbia County Observer and suggest that we are pushing an LGBTQ agenda on the community. I would first suggest that most of those people have probably not really read the substance of what we have written. More importantly, they have not grasped the underlying purpose. It’s true, much of the specific content we have defended has been library materials containing LGBTQ themes and characters. What I want to state first and foremost is that we are not the ones who chose that subject matter as the local battlefield in the war for free speech. It is the people who want to impose restrictions on materials, the people who openly advocate for removing books from the public library, the people who lobby state officials to criminalize some of the basic functions of libraries and librarians who have chosen this battleground. We are simply willing to fight this fight against them.

The larger issue at hand is freedom of expression and the freedom to read. The principle that one group of people should not be able to dictate what materials other people have access to is the real issue we are addressing. There is no shortage of irony in the fact that those seeking to impose these restrictions are among the same groups who typically advocate for greater parental oversight and responsibility. Why can parents be trusted to determine what is best for their children to be exposed to at home but not at the public library? The specific subject of LGBTQ related material is at the forefront of our debate because those are the materials being specifically targeted by others in the community. By our count, 91% of the books challenged for relocation or removal contain LGBTQ subjects or characters. For some of us, this subject is very personal. Some of us have queer family members, friends, and loved ones. For others, it is simply a matter of freedom and doing what is right because it is right. It is also a matter of fighting against those who would repress the freedoms of others early before they move on to other targets. We have learned the lesson of Pastor Niemöller from history rather than from personal experience. Having learned that lesson we seek to avoid its escalation before it gets any worse.

Martin Niemöller is most famous for his poem First They Came but his story is a complicated one. Initially, Pastor Niemöller was an anti-Semitic Nazi Sympathizer. Only after the Nazis had consolidated their control of the German state and started restricting the rights of other groups as well did he begin to realize his mistake. We are not going to make the same mistake. Statesmen and philosophers have repeatedly warned us about the failures of learning from history. This is a piece of history we have learned. This is a piece of history we remember. This is a piece of history we are determined not to repeat. I am not queer. But I am going to continue to speak out now. I am going to do so because I know that people who have no problem oppressing the humanity and freedoms of those they deem to be “others” will eventually apply the same measures to more and more groups. This is not about pushing any kind of LGBTQ agenda. This is about fighting the fights we are confronted with. This is about stopping oppression at the beginning, before the cycle spins out of control. First they are coming for the LGBTQ community, and I am speaking out now, before they start to come for anyone else.