A local church is urging its members to permanently remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes.

Pamela Wilson Federspiel, who has been director of the library in downtown Shelbyville for 34 years, says the action is tantamount to “stealing.”

But three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville defend what they call an “act of civil disobedience.”

  • forrgott@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Nah, don’t give em an inch. Theft of property is, by it’s very nature, a criminal act. Absolutely does not qualify as civil disobedience in any way. Worse it perverts the meaning of that term.

    • tree_frog_and_rain@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Civil disobedience is criminal by definition. It’s breaking laws with the intention of making society more moral or just (in your own view).

      But I agree, the pastor is perverting the term. Because he’s acting as if they are mutually exclusive in order to evade consequences.