Local culture war politics and delivery of public services were in the spotlight last week in East Hempfield Township, when township supervisors voted to withhold funding to the local Lancaster Public Library. This story began back in March when the Lancaster Public Library announced that it was planning to have a drag performer, Christopher Paolini (known professionally as Miss Amie Vanité), come in and read several children’s books while in drag. This idea seemed to be particularly popular with local families, as 300 families had signed up to participate in the event scheduled for March 23.
According to local news station Fox 43, several local politicians spoke out against the Drag Queen Story Hour in March, including Lancaster County’s Republican County Commissioners and Pennsylvania House Minority Leader and Lancaster County State Representative Bryan Cutler who said that “hyper-sexualization of our children at publicly supported institutions must come to an end.” On the morning of March 23, the day of the event, story hour was canceled when the library received a bomb threat from an anonymous source.
The organization Lancaster Pride highlighted the bomb threat as exemplary of the threats that LGBTQ+ individuals deal with on a daily basis. Lancaster County Democrats Chair Tom O’Brien placed the blame for the bomb threats squarely on elected officials “adding to the flame.” However, this was not the end of the story, as East Hempfield Township Supervisors held their bi-weekly meeting and decided to take more action. Republican Township Supervisor Scott Wiglesworth proposed cutting funding for the local Mountville library until library officials in Lancaster create written policies ensuring all future events will be non-political and another requirement that all future drag story hour events would be banned.
The Lancaster Library System was specifically targeted by the supervisors as culture war retribution for the library’s planned Drag Queen Story Hour. The township annually provides $26,700 in public donations to support its local public library and all of this funding would be cut until the county-wide library board falls in line. Library board chairman Josh Schwartz promised not to schedule a drag queen story hour again in the near future, but he refused to promise to ban them outright.
East Hempfield Township Supervisors voted to cut the library funding along party lines, 4 to 1 with 4 Republicans voting for the cut and the lone Democrat voting against it. Wiglesworth and the other three Republicans said that it was not appropriate for a public library that receives tax dollars to hold a political event. Wiglesworth argued this was clearly an example of a political event, as the event was supported by Lancaster Pride. Bob Johnson, the only Democrat on the East Hempfield Board, argued that this would hurt local residents who wished to use the Mountville Library, while Schwartz denied accusations that this was a politically motivated event. According to LNP/Lancaster Online, during county and townships meetings this past week, residents of Lancaster County came out in support of both sides of the controversy, with residents like Marilyn Bradley arguing that the story hour was not intended to be political and therefore should not be reason enough for the township funding cuts to the library. Others like Wendy Voulopos said that the event should never have been held “in a publicly funded, taxpayer facility” and that the funding needed “conditions” to address taxpayer concerns.
Clearly, there are arguments that can be made about what constitutes appropriate programming for libraries and other sacred places of learning and education. The Mountville Library has been caught in the crossfire of Lancaster County’s latest culture war.
