The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, city commission voted July 10 to permit the gay-oriented Stonewall Library to relocate on city property, despite comments by Mayor Jim Naugle that he was “uncomfortable and shocked” about library material he had seen.
Even though library officials explained that visitors must be 18 or older to enter the private library, the Miami Herald reported June 11 that at the commission meeting Naugle said the library’s holdings—billed as one of the nation’s largest collections of gay and lesbian literature—may include “hard-core” pornographic material. To check out one of Stonewall’s 600 movies or 18,000 books, patrons must fill out a membership form; archives and periodicals do not circulate.
The week before, Naugle told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel that the city should purchase high-tech, electronic toilets for the express purpose of discouraging users from engaging in “homosexual activity.” That statement elicited protests from the gay community, with activists urging supporters to send rolls of toilet paper or photos of toilet paper rolls to the mayor as a form of protest.
“When I showed the materials to the city attorney, he said it was likely hard-core pornography,” Naugle said. “I feel troubled a city building would be housing materials with content we have arrested people for in the past.” He declined to specify the titles he was referring to, the Herald reported.
“His comments were unfortunate,” said Jack Rutland, the library’s director. “There’s material that people would feel uncomfortable with just as I would feel uncomfortable and queasy reading a medical journal. Our duty is to represent every aspect of our community.”
“Someone coming to do research about gays can find anything they want,” Rutland told American Libraries. “If someone is looking for information on religion and gays, the lesbian revolution, AIDS activists, or every issue of the Advocate dating back to the 1960s, they’ll find it. It’s a historical research archive; the circulating collection does not contain anything pornographic, even in the least sense of that word.”
In the end, the commission voted 3–2 to allow the Stonewall Library to move into space in the city building at 1300 E. Sunrise Blvd., which also houses a Broward County Library branch.
Posted July 13, 2007.