Ban books: No. New library: Yes

We are halfway through Banned Books Week. If you haven’t seen the display or spoken with Joy Neal at the library and have not been to Seaport Books and have been hesitant to bring the topic up with the kids at the dinner table, here is an opening: at dinner tonight say the Weekly News once again raised the flag for freedom of speech.

If Constitution Day, September 17th, wasn’t discussed either, do that, too.

Our First Amendment – ours, as in the Constitution is the national religion that does bind us all together – is our fealty and commitment to upholding our highest ideals in that imperfect document.

Banning books limits speech. No one is truly protected when their growth is stifled. No one can stand on the solid ground of freedom while insisting that certain books – and now websites – must be kept out of the public sphere – which libraries and schools are. We need libraries especially in our fragmented, isolated, look-up-from-your-screen-while-I’m-talking-to-you moment that is our present day. Greater La Conner needs a new library in which to congregate. It needs a library on Morris Street with a meeting room so there is always a place for public gatherings.

We need a library through which we can access any book or no book at all, a library that will help people dream about pirate treasures and explorations to distant galaxies and work on boring homework or prepare for certification to make a job promotion possible.

Getting such a library built requires everyone reading this column to write another check to the La Conner Library Foundation. But, sadly, that will not be enough. Getting your friends to write checks is critical. But most necessary of all is getting your employers, local corporations and governments in our state – town, county and the legislature – to put significant funds into the project. Last year’s $500,000 from Olympia was an important start, but little La Conner, because it is little, needs more from our big state government.

In fact, before you vote for your state legislators this fall, ask them if they will champion additional funding from the state.

If this is the first check you are writing for the new library, promise yourself you will write another at year’s end.

And talk about why banned books are a bad idea to your children, your family and your friends.