JAMESTOWN, Mich. — Two librarians had quit since the trouble began, and Kaitlin McLaughlin didn’t want to be the third.
But the same term kept coming up in board meetings and on yard signs, making her feel awkward and wrongly accused: grooming.
People in this western Michigan farming town said the Patmos Library was “grooming” children and, according to fliers that one group printed, promoting an “LGBTQ ideology.” They said bookshelves meant for young readers featured same-sex pornography. They called the staff pedophiles, McLaughlin said. Then one August morning, they voted to defund Jamestown’s only public library, jeopardizing the institution’s future as neighbors clashed over who gets to decide free speech in this deep-red corner of America.
