Citizens must not allow the application of loaded terms, such as "political agenda" to darken the reputation of the American Library Association. Such mudslinging is unconscionable at an organization that has stood for the rights of citizens of the United States to enjoy free access to information and ideas, the right to read, and the right to hear, speak, and explore all points of views for almost 120 years.

Protecting the rights of American citizens, by upholding the First Amendment, is an honorable activity and should be held in the highest regard. However, the noble goals of the ALA were deemed unnecessary for Loudoun County's libraries by the Library Board of Trustees. They deleted the ALA Bill of Rights from Loudoun library policy, offering no valid reason for doing so.

Religious right activists and their organizations attack the American Library Association because the ALA is a gigantic stumbling block in their efforts to control materials in public libraries. Since these activists cannot honestly state their case to the American public, because it would be widely rejected, they resort to name calling. These extremists are good at hiding their true agenda in pro-family, mainstream language that unsuspecting citizens would approve of. We must be vigilant in our efforts to expose the true agenda of those who would deny us access to information.

The American Library Association Bill of Rights is a concise, six statement document that provides basic policies dealing with library materials, information, censorship and abridgment of free expression. The Bill of Rights is a professional document that has held up to censorship attempts over many years. This document has been adopted by most library systems across America, and withdrawn from only one.

Family Friendly Libraries wants to eliminate the American Library Association (ALA) which it describes as "an arrogant, monopolistic, lobbying special-interest group" which "is known nationwide as a pro-pornography group." The group's spokesperson, Karen Jo Gounaud, states: "Our ultimate goal is USA-wide replacement of ALA control with local citizen control, one community at a time." The ALA's Library Bill of Rights with its support of intellectual freedom is a major stumbling block for the FFL in their attempt to remove or restrict materials they deem inappropriate. Learn more about the goals of Family Friendly Libraries.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, whose talk radio show reaches more than 20 million listeners each day, has joined the relgious right's attack on the ALA, mimicing the extremists' language and repeating their misrepresentations. Dr. Laura, who harbors no doubts regarding her "moral" judgments, exemplifies the destructiveness of hyperbole combined with self-righteousness.

The best description of Dr. Laura's rantings comes from the article "Dr. Laura: Wronging our rights in the library" by Paul McMasters, First Amendment Ombudsman, 7/12/99. The full article is available at the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Ombudsman site. What follows are excerpts from this article:

Are the nation's librarians really pimping for pornographers and pedophiles? Anyone listening regularly to one of the nation's radio talk-meisters, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, might think so.

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While few of us would put librarians at the top of our list of people most menacing to our children, Dr. Laura believes they are evil incarnate. During National Library Week this spring, she launched her attack on the ALA, which, she said, "is boldly, brashly contributing to sexualizing our children. And now the pedophiles know where to go. The ALA, she said, wants "to make sure your children have easy access to pornography, under the guise of free speech."

In a May 5 letter to ALA Executive Director William Gordon, Dr. Laura said, among other things, that "by advocating open access to hard-core smut, the ALA has constructed a protected haven to corrupt our innocent."

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Dr. Laura isn't content with complaining on her show. She claimed credit for getting reconsidered a California bill that would require filtering of public-library Internet access. And the ALA credits her talk show for torpedoing eight months of negotiations for a $250,000 grant from the Toys 'R' Us toy-store chain. The money would have gone to the Fund for America's Libraries to pay for the building of children's reading rooms in public libraries across the United States.