Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
February 2000 – It may be the shot heard throughout Cyberspace. A simple up-or-down vote on the subject of blocking access to pornography on the library computers in Holland, Michigan, is shaping up to be a conflict that may make national headlines.
The people of this town of 30,000 in western Michigan have a date with a February 22 vote, when a ballot initiative will be considered concerning a very simple question: should the Herrick District Library in Holland put filters on its computers that would bar access to sexually explicit sites? This one issue has been the flashpoint leading to fire-breathing editorials in the local newspaper, letters to the editor – even an endorsement of the ballot measure by Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes.
At issue is the position – some would say radical stand – of the American Library Association (ALA), a private organization that influences the policies of most public libraries in the country. The ALA has stated emphatically in its official documents that children have a right to access everything and anything in the library and on the Internet – including pornography.
AFA touched off a firestorm last fall when it began a new campaign to break the ALA’s hold on the nation’s public library system. (See AFA Journal, 9/99.) AFA produced a video about the ALA and its extremist policies entitled Excess Access.
In response, Irv Boss, vice president of the Holland Area Family Association – AFA’s local affiliate, organized a public forum on the issue, and asked AFA of Michigan President Gary Glenn to find out what more could be done locally.
After researching state law, Glenn learned that Michigan allows local communities to filter Internet porn from their libraries as long as the action is taken by the local community, and as long as one library computer is left unfiltered, and designated for adults only.
After Glenn contacted AFA’s Center for Law & Policy (CLP), a model ordinance was drafted which could be presented to the Holland city council. The local and state AFA affiliates then took the issue directly to the people, asking them to sign a petition saying they wanted their libraries to filter out Internet porn.
Things fairly exploded at that point. Concerned citizens in nearby Hudsonville heard what AFA of Michigan was doing, and asked for help in getting the pornography out of their local library. With their own petition signatures in hand, local AFA Coordinator Jackie Gerlofs and others asked their city managers to pass the ordinance or place it on the ballot for a vote next election, as required by law.
Apparently angry at the public support generated by AFA of Michigan for library filtering, the Hudsonville City Commission unanimously passed the ordinance, and disconnected the library’s computers from the Internet. The city commission put signs on the computers telling people to call AFA if they had a complaint. Neither AFA’s national headquarters nor AFA of Michigan has received a single complaint from the people of Hudsonville.
Meanwhile, back in Holland, Glenn and local AFA supporters had gathered sufficient signatures to place the issue on the February ballot. That prompted a shrill denunciation from the editors of the town’s newspaper, The Holland Sentinel.
Someone else grew angry as well. Should the people of Holland vote for Internet filtering, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has hinted at a possible court challenge. With the Holland case shaping up as a potential ground-breaking face-off, the CLP has offered to defend the ban on Internet porn at no charge to the city.
AFA President Donald E. Wildmon said this conflict over library access to pornography is critical. “The battle we’re fighting in Michigan is the Lexington and Concord of our revolution to free our families from the tyranny of the ALA,” he said. “If we can win this fight, we might set a legal precedent which could impact the rest of the nation. And the stakes are high – the spiritual, and even physical, safety of our children in our
local libraries.” 
