Transcript

Children's book display on LGBTQ in Pride sparks controversy at Arkansas library

Mark Nichols: We're just a typical family from a small town in Arkansas. I serve on the local library board. And it came to our attention just the premature exposure of sexual material that was in the children's section.

Speaker B: A library board of directors meeting lasted over three hours after a children's book display on LGBTQ in Pride caused controversy among the community.

Stephanie Nichols: These speak for themselves openly on the shelf in children's reference with no policy in place otherwise.

Mark Nichols: And I knew that I had to do something and I had to stand for truth. I just had no idea where it would lead.

Stephanie Nichols: Daily letters to the editor against my husband, talking about what a terrible person he was, calling for his resignation, really

Mark Nichols: accused me of hatred, promoting conversion therapy. They called me every name I guess they could call me. Really trying to destroy my character.

Stephanie Nichols: And honestly, what's hard about that is it would have been so much easier for Mark just to be silent and not to share the gospel. All God asks of you is faithfulness. Then conquer we must. For our cause it is just. And this be our motto In God is our trust.

Mark Nichols: We need desperately to have men and women of courage and discipline, for courage and discipline are contagious. Hi, my name is Mark Nichols, and I'm just a typical family man from a small town in Arkansas. I'm the husband of Stephanie Nichols, and we have five wonderful children and with one on the way. And so we're really just a typical family. We are involved in our local church. We just want to give our kids a good education and get them in extracurricular activities. When our county judge contacted me and asked me to serve on the library board, I was apprehensive at first. I knew that, just by going in the library, we frequent the library with our children. I knew that they, promoted some things that I didn't agree with and that I would have trouble really being a part of. But I felt like it was the right thing to do to serve my community in this way. So I accepted the position about nine months before this really came to our attention. Well, Jonesboro, Arkansas, is a conservative community. We have a church on every corner. you know, it's really just composed of hard working families trying to provide a good life for their children and a good education. And so I would say we're about as conservative as they come, you know, in our country. And so if this is going on here, it's really going on everywhere. And that also has come to our attention that this is really a national, you know, movement, you know, to really win the hearts of minds of children at a young age and, and start them down this path early and to trick them early. Well, the controversy started in June of 2021. Our local library decided to display 33 books in the children's section for gay Pride month. A, local mother was in the children's section and she noticed these books and she had a concern about them and she posted on social media just some pictures of the content. And of course that was brought to my attention and it really went viral in our community. And there was a lot of parents that were really concerned about the books in the library.

Stephanie Nichols: Okay. So, you know, other parents have been discussing this and brought a lot of these books to our attention. And so I wanted to read it for myself and research for myself. And what I found out is these books speak for themselves. Like, parents should have the right to say, I don't want my children prematurely exposed to this material just because I want them to have a good education and have access to books via the public library. Why do we even have sections for children if they cannot browse freely in those sections without being prematurely exposed to sexuality? I think that's a major violation of parental rights. So to me, it shouldn't be that controversial to, say, put appropriate books in appropriate places. So I just like to show you a couple of the books that speak for themselves. So this is a board book. the publisher's target age range for this book is ages 2 to 5. And one of the things that it tells young children is you're born naked and the rest is drag. We need to think carefully about that because that really demeans women when you think about drag. It's an unhealthy caricaturization of women. It depicts women in a stereotype, an over sexualized stereotype, and that's not good for women's rights. As a mother of daughters, I think that that's something that we should avo is this portrait, you know, this false portrayal of women in a false light, that this is what a woman is. And, another book is the gay bcs. And what to me is so inappropriate about this book is children. Young children are used in the illustrations for sexual orientations. Now, there's nothing sexually explicit or graphic, but it's still teaching kids that, okay, I have a sexual orientation as a child. The publisher's description is that four friends sashay out of all the closets. So who's coming out of the closets? It's the kids. And kids shouldn't even be thinking about what their sexual orientation Is we should give them the chance to be kids. Like, let them enjoy their childhoods. Why are we putting adult concepts and materials, not just putting it in there in the children's section, but actively promoting it? Because that's what was happening. So one of these pages is B is for bi. You can shout it out loud. I like boys and girls, and that makes me proud. So who has the sexual orientation in this picture? A child. And the child is announcing their sexual orientation to the world. That's not appropriate. You go further, and it's L is for lesbian. Two special girlfriends who share a connection. Deceptive. As far as you know what sexual orientation means. This was in the children's section of our local library. It was in children's reference, next to books on things like dinosaurs. So if your kid was interested in browsing books on dinosaurs, it was very likely that they might pick up this book. and once you see some of these things, you cannot unsee it. So this shows pictures of, a man and woman in a sexual position, two women in sexual positions, and two men in a sexual position. It also describes things in such a way as to sound really appealing to a kid. It says, another kind of sexual intercourse happens when the sexual parts of two people who have female bodies touch. Or when the sexual parts of two people who have male bodies touch. This kind of touching can make the whole body feel good, feel sexy, you know, Is that something that my child, as they're browsing books, should run across? That, you know, parents have to watch them like they're in a dark alley just because they're browsing books? I think we can do better as a society than that. And so we really need to think we have laws that protect children from premature experimentation and exposure to sexuality because we know it's not good for their development. I've talked to school counselors and others about this material. I have showed them this book, and they have said, this is not right. It's not appropriate to child development, and it's not good for children to be exposed. Another chapter in this book shows a child masturbating and tells them how to masturbate. It's just ridiculous that this was openly on the shelf in children's reference with no policy in place otherwise. So as a mother, I have to think, okay, what else is in there? And how can I in good conscience let my children explore the library? Which is important. I think it's important to a child's educational development that they can freely explore the world of books. But we need to have policies in place that show appropriate books will be in appropriate places. So you can have that confidence as a parent when you take your child to the library. My daughter, who is 11, she went to the library with her grandmother in June, and she came home and told me about this display. and one of the things was, there was a poster, and this is for children with 13 different types of gay pride flags, but definitions about sexual orientations in the process. So one of those definitions was pansexualism. I think that I should have a right as a parent to choose how and when I might want to have a conversation about pansexualism with my child. Another thing promoted in that poster was gender fluidity. You know, the idea that your gender can change from day to day or year to year, that's. That's very confusing for a child. So it's not just what material's on the shelves, but what is actively promoted, what is put in children's faces. That is. That's a problem.

Mark Nichols: So when these books came to our attention, of course there was a lot of, you know, concern in the community. there was passionate people, really, on both sides of the issue. And our next library meeting wasn't until August, and so we had all of July to, There was articles in the paper, a lot of activity on social media. So there was a lot of tension and anticipation leading up to this meeting, August, as we learned more about the books in the library, it was evident there was, you know, explicit material in the teen section, and that came out a little bit later. Graphic descriptions of, you know, sexual acts. And so, that was really concerning to us. And we knew that we had to do something. And leading up to the meeting, I really had, you know, just a lot of concerns about myself. You know, would I, you know, would I behave, you know, under pressure? Would I say anything wrong? And I have a, you know, a tendency, maybe when I passionate about a topic to be, you know, too harsh. And so I really. I wanted to have the right heart. And so I was, you know, just reading scripture, and I read in John how, Jesus was full of grace. And I knew that that's what I needed. I needed to be full of grace and not be harsh. But also read in that same passage how Jesus was full of truth. And I knew that I had to speak truth and I had to, interject truth of God's word in the situation, but do it in a loving way.

Stephanie Nichols: So, in preparation for board meetings, I do pray for my husband because I know that he's in a role where, you know, you're in public and your comments, now that we have the Internet, your comments are going to be there for the public to see forever. So I pray that he will say only what God wants him to say, but also everything that God wants him to say. And I don't want my husband, husband to be silent because to me, it's a wonderful thing as a wife to know that I'm married to a brave and courageous man. It has been disappointing to me as a mother to see that so many of our community leaders just stay silent in this effort to protect children from premature exposure to sexual things. I think that there should be a lot more community leaders speaking up.

Mark Nichols: Well, the August meeting was really intense. When we walked in the door, there was over 200 people. There was standing room only. We rarely have anyone show up to our board meetings. And there was that, it was really high energy. There was a lot of emotions involved. People on both sides of the issue were passionate.

Stephanie Nichols: This place is a center for knowledge.

Mark Nichols: Why ban books?

Stephanie Nichols: Why ban the physical embodiments of knowledge? This is a tactic used in grooming children for exploitation.

Speaker D: And again, if you don't want the book, leave it on the shelf. Because it's been a really important moment for me to share these books with my kids. I'm a parent of four young kids, and when I come, I don't have time to grab every book ahead of them and to look through and screen it. The last time I brought them, after the display was taken down, I had to panic and think, I don't know, I don't know. What's that one?

Stephanie Nichols: No matter what you do, children are going to find out. You might as well let them find out the right one.

Mark Nichols: You know, people on both sides of the issue spoke, you know, for or against the books. And, there was a lot of jeering that just went on and even name calling and people yelling out, you know, you, know, bigot and you know, hater in the meetings.

Speaker E: Do you have a problem with gay people?

Mark Nichols: No, sir. I love all people. I really do. I'm not kind of insulted by, hey, I want you to know that this is out of love, you know, and I feel like these are. It's a funny way of showing. I think the other board members, just wondered why I was drawing attention to this and why, because they really wanted to avoid any kind of controversy or conflict. Do we think as a board that this is appropriate material for four year olds? we as a board, have a responsibility for the hearts and minds of these children. To a certain extent. If we put that material in front of them, we have a responsibility. And I was really, I, really felt like we had to protect children. You know, a lot of the adults that, were speaking for this material wanted access to the material. And so I felt like it was a good balance to move these, you know, these graphic books and controversial books that a child can just, you know, pick off the shelf, you know, and be exposed to this for them to just be in the adult section, where if someone wants their child to have access, then they can do that. And I made that, motion and thankfully I had another board member, Amanda Eskew. She was a like minded believer. And so I knew that if we proposed something, I could at least get a second and we would have to have a vote. You know, all the board members would have to vote on the issue. When we proposed to move these books into the adult section, a lot of people said that we were trying to censor this material. And really the whole context of the children's section is a, censored group of books. They're, they're appropriate for children, you know, of, this age group. And so to tell a child that they have to decide what their sexual orientation is, whether they're a boy or girl. And, you know, some books said that this changes day by day or year by year. We felt like these books needed to be in the adult section and they needed to be the worst. If someone had to, wanted to look at them, they could. but a child just walking by just couldn't pick them up and read this material. And, and it caused a lot of confusion in their life.

Speaker B: A library board of directors meeting lasted over three hours after a children's book display on LGBTQ and Pride caused controversy among the community, and it even became the main topic at tonight's packed meeting. While the board had two proposals that both failed and most of the time was spent hearing from both sides, those in support of the display say parents do not have to read the books. And while the opposing side says they shouldn't be in the children's section at

Speaker E: all, One side is trying to limit the kind of books that are at the library, and the other just wants to keep things open for all people. Let's keep things open for everyone, shall we?

Stephanie Nichols: Because a lot of things happened when you were introduced. It's not just seeing pictures and reading words on a book. Something happens in here. It happens in their mind.

Mark Nichols: Well, after the August, board meeting really the controversy just heated up. there was a lot of media and a lot of social media, you know, post on the topic. A lot of sharing of information. You know, people don't know really your intentions and your heart. They just assume that you, that you hate this other person or that you dislike them. But I thought, how do I get this, how do I get this point across? How do I let people know where I'm coming from? You know, I really can't in the board meeting just go into a long speech, you know, and basically preach a sermon. You know, I can't really. You don't have that platform. There's. And so I had watched the In His Image movie a few months prior. Felt like the movie did a great job of being compassionate on this issue. You know, interjecting biblical truth. That was what needed to get in everyone's hands so they could understand, you know, truth on this topic. And so I ordered a number of copies and after the October board meeting, I handed out these copies just in my personal capacity. I told people like this is not, you know, as a board member, this is just me sharing information and I want you to have my conviction. And other people were sharing information from GLSEN and different groups, just statistical data. I knew it was going to be really not politically correct that I was going to get some flack from that. But I felt like the opportunity, there were so many people focused on this. The opportunities couldn't be wasted to get the truth and to get the gospel, and to get this really message of hope into people hands.

Stephanie Nichols: After my husband, you know, spoke about protecting children at some library board meetings, he started to be mentioned in the paper, started to be mentioned in the paper frequently. And ah, that was difficult for us because we usually live pretty private lives as a family. We're busy with our family and you know, not honestly not used to that type of scrutiny or attention. And there were, you know, daily letters to the editor against my husband, you know, talking about what a terrible person he was, calling for his resignation.

Mark Nichols: Really accused me of hatred, of promoting conversion therapy. They called me every name I guess they could call me. Really tried to destroy my character. really they couldn't debate me I guess with facts and logic it seems like. But the really goal was to destroy my character and make it where the rest of the community just really didn't respect me. But other board members have received, feces in the mail. Amanda Esky received a glitter bomb, in her Kitchen. We have had people tell us that, you know, we won't forget about this, you know, and. And really, I think people just trying to twist what you say. There's just a lot of lies.

Stephanie Nichols: He was accused of harassing somebody just by offering them a DVD with another perspective after a board meeting and made sure to say, hey, this is in my personal capacity and not as a board. The act of trying to change my mind about something by handing me a piece of religious literature in DVD format is solicitation and harassment. When we've reached a point that we can't freely share and discuss ideas as a society, ideas on important areas of public debate, we've got a problem. But we have seen. We've seen that attempt to silence. Honestly, that's what our family has dealt with. And, then you have, you know, you have fears of loss of livelihood. How are we going to provide for our family in the course of all this? Because, you know, when your name is smeared through the mud in the local newspaper day after day, you start to wonder how that's going to impact your family's life and future.

Mark Nichols: So it's been hard on us. Just the extra time devoted to, do this on top of your busy, you know, schedules. you know, there's policies you feel like you need to write and get in on time and. And just the meetings have lasted for hours. and in the meetings, many times there's been several people in a row that get up and speak. And so sometimes there's, six or eight people in a row that get up and just look at you, and just spew things at you the entire meeting. And so it can really be difficult for, of course, myself and my wife to hear those things over and over again. And it does make you question things.

Stephanie Nichols: And honestly, what's hard about that is it would have been so much easier for Mark just to be silent and not to share the gospel. But he cares about souls, and so that was one reason he did want to share his faith. And, you know, honestly, it's hard to see your husband attacked like this, because I know his character. I have seen him serve in a local food pantry for years, help my grandmother, my elderly grandmother with needs. And it's just hard to see your husband, you know, called a bigot by a local pastor, accused of being a persecutor in this article, accused of preying on others. And, you know, it's just. It's hard to see essentially the effort to destroy your husband and your family and to go through that.

Mark Nichols: It made you say, did I do the right thing? Did I cross some line I, shouldn't have crossed? You know, and, you know, but in that moment, you know, when we, were suffering, lost, I was reading in the Psalms and, you know, David, you know, talks about, you know, God being his portion, you know, and whenever I felt like I had lost my name, you know, you know, really, you know, it just makes Christ more real to you. You know, when you feel like you've lost your name, you just lean towards, leading him that much more. Thankfully, the paper, you know, let me respond. And so I wrote a letter, you know, to the editor, and they ran it and just, you know, defended the movie and talked about, you know, a movie that shared testimonies of the power of Christ, you know, in people's lives. And I also got to address the real root of the deception really, of this whole situation which we were telling children that their desires or their guiding principle. And so, you know, I was reading in James, and it talks about how we're all drawn away by the desires that we have that rise up in us and we're deceived. And I knew that, that was really the root of this is deception, is that we're actually telling children that their desires and their feelings are their guiding principles. And the problem is that doesn't lead to a good place in that child's life. You know, the trajectory of believing that doesn't go well with them. You know, if a child believes that they're trapped in the wrong body, you know, they're m likely to start taking hormone treatments. And these hormone treatments could lead to, you know, sterilization. You know, that child doesn't realize some of the consequences of these things. And it also could lead to surgeries that are. That are irreversible. So I thought, what is the loving thing to do? To send a child down this path or to tell the truth and the power of the gospel, to these children? but, you know, whenever you're faced with something like this, really, you have two options. You know, I was reading in Galatians where Paul says, why do we seek the approval of man or of Christ? But the approval of man is something that we do have to deal with, you know, and you question, you know, is this worth it? You know, is this a hill, you know, to die on? Because, you know, really, you know, you are going to lose some respect from people, if you will, if you take a stand on some of these, these things. And so I've had people, you know, tell me that, you know, Mark, I would have, you know, liked your social media posts, but I was worried about my job, you know, or one person said that I've spent years building this business, and I would have gotten involved and supported you guys in this movement, but, I didn't want to lose any customers and I worried about the ramifications from that. And so these are real things we have to deal with whenever we, you know, take a stand for Christ. And, and but I knew that we had to, you know, I knew we had to stand for truth and you know, to stand on God's word.

Stephanie Nichols: Would you say was it worth it to make this stand knowing all that you're family has had to go through? Has it been worth it?

Mark Nichols: Yeah,

Stephanie Nichols: sorry, we questioned whether speaking out was worth it for a time, but what we saw was that the Lord had us and he was protecting us and he. He has brought us through and that things are going to be okay. And really if the price of your peace is bought with silence, it's too high of a price.

Mark Nichols: God's word was shared through this process. I mean, our local paper, which is fairly liberal, shared the gospel in the paper. A lot of people spoke truth in the meetings and just had boldness in the in his image movie. I know just God's word won't return void. I know that it will do its work. And a lot of people that haven't heard the gospel heard it for the first time. When I look back, it was really that initial mother, the courage and the boldness to make that initial social media post. And because of her courage, it really gave other people courage to speak, including myself. And when people came to the meetings and spoke truth, you know, it just courage seemed to breed courage and it gave us all more boldness. Well, if there's a fight in your local community, I just want to encourage you to stand by each other. If someone's taking a stand, stand with.

Speaker E: He has been polled repeatedly over the last half year, but the rest of the board does not agree with him. And what has been his response to continue his campaign only to be to know again and again,

Mark Nichols: Lord.

Speaker E: We pray tonight, Lord, for the board meeting tonight we pray for our local library, God. we're asking for favor, Lord, with those on the board, Lord, asking for you to just turn hearts, minds, Lord, to just some common sense things, Father. That I think we should all agree on, Lord. God, I just pray for those that will be speaking tonight, Lord. God that you'll speak through so many God