Tile Fundraiser Skids
to a Halt in Washington
The Friends of the Redmond (Wash.) Library have called a halt to a fundraising initiative in which community members could buy library-walkway paving tiles engraved with the sentiments of their choice. The decision is the culmination of a two-year controversy over four tiles purchased by an area resident who contributed anti-religious messages in reaction to the Christian sentiments written on other donors’ tiles. Among Matthew J. Barry’s dissenting messages was “God Kills Babies. Read 1 Samuel 15:3. And God Is Love?”
The situation escalated further when Nancy and Michael Herring of Redmond asked library officials to move their donated tile, which memorializes Michael’s late father Bernard Herring, because it lies alongside Barry’s “God Kills Babies” statement. Bill Ptacek, director of the King County Library System, of which Redmond Library is a part, declined their request. “It would be very difficult to change things now,” Ptacek commented.
“The last thing in the world we wanted to do was offend anyone,” Ptacek also said, explaining that some people had taken the library’s free-speech policies “to the extreme.” Having learned from legal counsel that the library can set criteria for the messages, Redmond Friends are contemplating the imposition of a rule to limit messages to names and dates, the Associated Press reported October 9.
Posted October 14, 2002.
|
