Dupage Policy Journal

Parents' rights organization Awake Illinois elevated an email from downers Grove Library to patrons in the wake of the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs.

After the incident, Downers Grove Library sent out an email blast noting the shooting and comparing it to alleged threats the library received after it was outed for putting an event on its calendar which would have included a drag performance for children.

“The @DGLibrary sent this email out today. Thoughts?” Awake Illinois posted to Twitter.

The post linked to a screenshot of the email from the library describing the mass shooting in Colorado Springs which killed five.

The email then takes a turn when it addresses local “threats.”

“It is troubling that increasing attacks against the LGBTQ+ community are currently a national trend (NBC),” the library noted in its email.

“Our community is not immune; over the last year we have seen tremendous aggression and hostility in response to materials and events in Downers Grove, and here at the library. The vitriol that followed the announcement of our canceled Drag Queen Bingo event sent a loud message to our LGBTQ+ children, family members, friends, neighbors, and staff. We call on everyone to open our community's doors with kindness and empathy to the incredible diversity of individuals who discover, grow, play, and learn in Downers Grove.

Dan Kleinman of Safe Libraries responded to Awake IL’s post. 

"It’s virtue signaling. They have nothing to say about their own contributions to harming children, patrons, and librarians in their own community by following @ALALibrary policy that harms so many and can amount to grooming,“ Kleinman said on Twitter.

GOP Precinct Committeemen District 141 Terry Newsome said the alleged “threats” the Downers Grove Library cited when canceling a highly unpopular drag show event at the library were not credible of from local conservative activists.  

“There were no threats from anywhere, from Downers Grove, anywhere,” Newsome told DuPage Policy Journal.

“They never showed us any threats. We were all coming from their imagination. I'm not saying there's not threats that might have hurt here. What I am saying is nobody from our community, none of the parents from Downers Grove or the 99 parents that's in this community that's upset with the pornography drag queens, they are not violent. They're not threatening anyone. It's quite the contrary. They're the ones that are pummeling us on Facebook, calling us terrorist bigots and, you know, everything under the sun. And we never even mention that community outside of the fact that they attacked us. We have to defend and say we're not part of that community. They're the ones that says we’re ‘anti-LGBTQ.”

The U.S. Postal Service also noted the threats elevated by the library were “not credible.”

In addition, a former Downers Grove librarian Regina Hardin recently noted her displeasure with library officials for allowing repeat offenders, including the mentally ill, who have reportedly regularly threatened library staff - including sexual harassment and death threats - without being turned away.

Hardin said after elevating multiple incidents of threatening and harassing behavior in the library she was targeted by the library and quit.

“I felt betrayed and humiliated,” Hardin said through tears as she described the encounters and her ultimate departure from the institution.