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Mississippi's library system funds held back over ‘homosexual literature’ on its shelves

A TOP librarian in Madison, Mississippi, says a local mayor is withholding funds over what he calls “homosexual literature.”

Madison County Library System executive director Tonja Johnson says that the mayor of Ridgeland, one of the boroughs responsible for funding the library, declined to supply a late quarterly payment of $110,000 (£80,000) until said literature is removed from the library system, citing his Christian beliefs.

Mayor Gene McGee has not confirmed he used the term “homosexual literature” but said a number of books present in the system were “inappropriate for children.”

It is unclear whether he has the authority to unilaterally withhold funds and the library board is seeking a hearing to decide on the matter.

The case highlights a deepening culture war in US libraries and schools, and follows the decision by a Tennessee school district this month to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, a story about the Holocaust depicting Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, from the classroom because of its “inappropriate language.”

School board member Tony Allman said the book “shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff?”

But American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said: “Yes, it is uncomfortable to talk about genocide, but it is our history and educating about it helps us not repeat this horror.” 

Republican officials in states including Texas and South Carolina have called for systemic reviews of which books are taught in schools in their states, in what Democrats say is a campaign targeting LGBT and anti-racist literature taking place right across the United States.

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