American Family Association of Michigan President Gary Glenn has sent a letter to trustees of the Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham, recommending that they order library workers to begin using Internet filters there. The letter, written a few days after Holland voters defeated a filter initiative Glenn had supported and Hudsonville officials reinstated Internet service they had discontinued to avoid presenting voters with a similar ballot measure, seems triggered by a February 22 Oakland Press story that BPL staff had called police after witnessing a male patron viewing sexually explicit photos of young boys at an Internet workstation.
“Parents’ tax dollars are being used to make child pornography available to pedophiles in a public library building,” Glenn wrote. If the board denies his request, he has vowed to get a measure similar to Holland’s placed on the November ballot.
“There really is not a problem here in Birmingham,” library Director Leslie Kee told the paper February 26. “Sophisticated patrons come here and the computers are used properly.”
Posted March 6, 2000.