A Michigan public library is in danger of closing after its staff refused to remove LGBTQ+ books from its collection and town residents voted to defund it, Bridge Michigan reports.
Voters in Jamestown Township, a small community in west Michigan, declined to renew millage—property tax revenue—for the town’s Patmos Library. The vote came after librarians refused to cave in to demands that they pull books including Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable (illustrated by Ellen T. Crenshaw), and Spinning by Tillie Walden. All three titles feature LGBTQ+ characters. The vote to renew the millage failed by a wide margin, with 62 percent of voters casting votes to deny the library funding.