School board candidate checks out all LGBTQ books from library to 'preserve innocence'

A Maryland school board candidate claims she checked out all of the books from an LGBT pride month display at a local library in order to make it a “safe place for children," The Frederick News-Post reports.

Heather Fletcher, who's running for a seat on the Frederick County Board of Education, told the News-Post that she checked out the book to prevent other patrons from reading them. “This has nothing to do with the gay community,” Fletcher said. “It has to do with the preservation of innocence.”

She said that although she hasn't yet returned the books, she plans to do so, but she's not sure If she'll return the pins she took from the display that displayed pronouns.

Frederick County Public Libraries spokesperson Samantha Jones said that after the books were checked out, library employees immediately reconfigured the display. The display aims to “raise awareness of diverse experience and perspectives,” Jones added.

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Jones said that during the incident, Fletcher complained that taxpayer money should not have been used to purchase the pronoun pins.

“Those were not actually created with any public funds,” Jones told the News-Post. “All of our libraries have ‘Friends of the Library’ groups that support them, and items like that always come from those. So, it is not taxpayer money going toward things like that.”

Read the full story over at The Frederick News-Post.