WWL.com
The Lafayette Public Library has agreed to lift a ban on groups hoping to organize Drag Queen Story Time events after a lawsuit from the ACLU.
After legal action from an anti-Story Time group, visitors hoping to hold events had to sign a form promising not to do a Drag event at the library. ACLU Louisiana Legal Director Katie Schwartzmann says the form was unconstitutional.
“The library is a public space and it is opened up for public use, and when that happens, the government and the library cannot discriminate against people based on their viewpoint.”Story Time is an event where Drag Queens read stories to school kids about accepting their LGBTQ classmates. A Drag Queen reading at the library was canceled last year.
Schwartzmann says its one piece of an ongoing legal battle against an organization that she says specializes in preventing Story Time like events from happening at public facilities.
“This particular group that filed this lawsuit, the Warriors for Christ, has been filing these lawsuits across the country, and it is sort of their M.O. to disrupt these events.”
Schwartzmann says the Library’s policy has been reset to it’s former, pre-Story Time, state.
“What the library was doing before was constitutional, specifically they were just having people come in and apply for use of the room, and if all of the other library policies were met, they were allowed to use the room.”