Daily Southtown Suggests Public is "Irrelevant" on Playboy in the Library
11/7/2005 5:03:00 AM
By David E. Smith, Senior Policy Analyst
 | "There is a difference between censorship and sponsorship."
~Oak Lawn Mayor Dave Heilmann |  |  | Oak Lawn resident Mark Decker presents the case agianst Playboy before Oak Lawn Village Trustees. Mark has launched SafeLibraries.org in response to the library's decision to keep pornography behind the counter.
(Click on photo to enlarge.)
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On Sunday, November 6th, the Daily Southtown ran an Opinion/Editorial (see below) that was critical of the fact that the Oak Lawn Village Board voted unanimously to send a letter to the Oak Lawn Library Board asking it to reconsider the decision to keep Playboy, which is kept behind the counter.
In its op/ed, the Southtown claims that "the range of potentially offensive materials never stops at 'dirty pictures'" - suggesting that pro-decency advocates' actions amount to censorship. It would seem to me that the Southtown editors are attempting to cloud the debate over material that is clearly pornographic. It is sad to think that newspaper editors cannot distinguish the differences between Playboy and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, as sexually charged as that magazine can be.
Timeline
The whole controversy was rekindled by Oak Lawn resident and businessman Mark Decker. Mark, a father of three young children, appeared before the Oak Lawn Library Board in March to request that the library remove Playboy from its subscription list. He pointed out that "men viewing pornography in a public place where children congregate creates a dangerous situation." (Read more HERE.)
Taking its cue from the radically liberal American Library Association, the Oak Lawn Library Board denied his request. But Mark felt strongly that government-sponsored pornography should be removed from library shelves.
Mark appealed the decision first to Dr. James Casey, Director of the Oak Lawn Library, and then to the entire library board. Mark presented to the board members more than seven hundred signatures of Oak Lawn residents who agreed that Playboy had no place in their library. He also delieved copies of two letters from local churches expressing their concerns and disapproval of the library policy.
In June, Mark learned that the board refused to even revisit his request.
So he decided to take his case to the Oak Lawn Village Hall. He also started a website, SafeLibraries.org, to raise awareness of this important issue.
Meanwhile, the Daily Southtown newspaper asked readers to "Sound Off" on the issue of Playboy in the library. On Saturday, July 2nd the newspaper printed thrity-six responses, of which, thirty-three agreed that Playboy had no place in the public library.
The will of the people, as judged by the Southtown's own "Sound Off" pages, couldn't be more clear.
Then in September, a survey was conducted by an independent social research firm at the Oak Lawn village's Fall on the Green festival (Sept. 9-11). The survey reinforced the notion that a strong majority of library patrons, 80 percent, object to the library's subscription to Playboy and the use of tax funds for its purchase. But the Southtown would have you to believe that these fact are "irrelevant."
In late September, the Oak Lawn Village Board stepped up, voting unanimously to send a letter to the library board asking it to reconsider its decision to keep the magazine on the shelves. To be sure, Village Trustees were hearing from the residents in their districts.
After reading the the Southtown's editorial (see below) defending Playboy, I sent the following letter-to-the-editor:
Letter to the Daily Southtown
 So, the editorial writers for the Daily Southtown do not believe that the Oak Lawn Village Board should get involved in the debate over Playboy in the Oak Lawn Public Library. Why? The Southtown claims that since the Oak Lawn Library Board is an elected body, the decision to keep Playboy shouldn't be questioned - even if 80 percent of Oak Lawn residents disagree.
This is alarming, to say the least. The fact that the Daily Southtown, in siding with the library board, openly dismissing the "irrelevant" will of the people, smacks of the elitism that is typical of the out-of-touch media. Does the Southtown mean to suggest that the taxpayers and their representatives don't have the right to complain, criticize, affect or petition their government about policies, even those they subsidize with their tax dollars?
The Founding Fathers certainly didn't believe that the will of the governed was "irrelevant" - in fact, that right was secured in the very first amendment to the US Constitution.
And why shouldn't the seven library board members be checked by another branch of government? Checks and balances have historically worked well in our representative republic - why should the library board be any different?
What are the writers of the Southtown afraid of, the people actually having a voice in this matter? In a government of the people, by the people and for the people, why shouldn't the Oak Lawn residents' representatives weigh in on the issue of tax-subsidized pornography? The library board certainly doesn't seem too interested in the wishes of the patrons it serves, only the dictates of the American Library Association (ALA), an unelected and ultra-liberal organization based not in Oak Lawn, but in downtown Chicago.
In their arrogance, the seven members of the library board have not simply rejected one Oak Lawn citizen, but the wishes of the entire Village. One can be certain that the unanimous vote of the Village Trustees did not occur without significant pressure from the community. The "we know better than you" attitude of both the Oak Lawn Library and Southtown newspaper boards is just plain offensive.
Furthermore, the Southtown's argument that the swimsuit edition of the Sports Illustrated or Cosmopolitan may be the next item removed is a ridiculous straw-man argument. Yes, the swimsuit edition of SI and Cosmopolitan push the envelope of decency, but, much as the editors of Southtown would like to turn this into an issue of censorship, it is really about taxpayer-funded pornography, which most regular folk can clearly distinguish from non-pornographic literature.
Playboy is a pornographic magazine which exploits and demeans women as merely sexual play things. It undermines the values of commitment, loyalty and the values of family relationships. Village Trustees and everyday citizens of Oak Lawn are within their rights to want it removed.
In short, the library board does NOT have the final say about what taxpayers can or cannot do with their money - the people of Oak Lawn do!
Village board is wrong to enter Playboy fray
Sunday, November 6, 2005
THE ISSUE: Oak Lawn's village board sends a letter to the library board asking it to remove Playboy magazine, which is kept behind the counter at the library.
WE SAY: The library board, elected by village residents, should determine what materials are kept in the library. The village board should not pander to those who have made this an issue and should let library officials do their job.
Twice so far this year, the Oak Lawn Public Library Board has declined to drop Playboy magazine from its behind-the-counter collection of materials for adult patrons. Mark Decker, a resident of Oak Lawn who considers the magazine pornographic, wants it removed, and claims that 80 percent of village residents agree with him.
But the library board and Director James Casey say they have a responsibility to provide a diverse collection of materials, and so they've refused Decker's demand. As we've said before, we believe the library board made the right decision: public libraries have a responsibility to provide a wide range of books, magazines and, in today's world, other multi-media materials to serve the needs of the entire community. We don't know whether Decker's 80 percent figure is accurate, but it is irrelevant to this question. We suspect a large percentage of the books and magazines in any library would fail to get majority approval, but whether they did or not, the library should not base its decisions on polls.
But Decker's pleas apparently are getting a more receptive hearing on the other side of Raymond Avenue, in the village hall. Last week the village board decided to send a letter to the library board asking it to reconsider the Playboy decision. And in recent months, the village police chief has been warning businesses in town not to carry materials that he thinks might be pornographic, apparently in response to Decker's campaign.
Casey told the Southtown that this was the first time in his 32 years in the library business that he's been aware of a city or village asking a library to remove a title. There's a reason for that: What a library collection contains is no business of the city council or village board. It's the business of the library board members, who are elected to take on that responsibility. And any community that lets politics be interjected into such decisions is going to see all kinds of requests that books and magazines be banned.
If Playboy must go, how about Cosmopolitan with its scantily clad models, or Sports Illustrated with its annual bathing suit issue? Or Time or Newsweek, with their occasional photos from motion pictures that some would argue can be offensive, if not obscene?
But the range of potentially offensive materials never stops at "dirty pictures." "Offensive words" lead to calls to ban works of literature all the time. Whether it's "Catcher in the Rye" or "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" or "The DaVinci Code" or any other book, someone is going to find it offensive, inappropriate, maybe pornographic.
Mayor Dave Heilmann says the board is not engaging in censorship when it tells the library board it doesn't approve of Playboy and wants it gone. He told one of the downtown newspapers, "I don't think there's any desire to be telling the library board how to conduct their business."
Then don't.
The mayor and the village trustee have a right to express their opinions on this issue, but they've gone beyond that by taking a unanimous vote calling on the library to reconsider. Whether Heilmann wants to recognize it or not, the fact that the village board has the authority to approve or reject the library board's budget puts a letter like this one in a more serious category than simple observations. So does taking a vote on a question that's not their business.
And the fact that the police chief is going around town checking on magazine racks and video store shelves is a new development in Oak Lawn, something that wasn't happening before the current mayor and village board were elected. That creates a context in which the letter to the library board looks like unwarranted interference in library business. And the Playboy question is library business, not village business.
The library board has made its decision, and it was the right one. The Oak Lawn library is widely recognized as one of the best in this region, and the village board shouldn't mess around with it. It's a library for all residents, not just for children. The village board must recognize that and mind its own business.
The Daily Southtown editorial board consists of managing editor Dennis Robough, editorial directors John Hector and Ed Koziarski; assistant managing editors Jean Hodges and John O'Brien; city editors Bill Ruminski and Thomas Finn; assistant features editor Donna Vickroy; and news columnist Phil Kadner.
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