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Former President Obama blasts book bans, praises librarians

“If a nation built on freedom of expression allows certain voices & ideas to be silenced- why should other countries protect them?”

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3 years ago

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President Barack Obama greets children from the Valleyland Kids summer program outside a school in Chatfield, Minn., during a three-day bus tour in the Midwest, Aug. 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Former President Barack Obama, in an open letter published on his social media accounts Monday, praised the country’s librarians for standing “on the front lines” as book bans spread around the nation.

In the letter to the “hardworking librarians of America,” the former president took aim at the ongoing efforts by conservatives, especially the Florida-based ‘Moms for Liberty,’ a group recently designated as a hate and extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, to ban books covering issues regarding gender, human sexuality and race.

Writing on Twitter, Obama noted: “Today, some of the books that shaped my life—and the lives of so many others—are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. And librarians are on the front lines, fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone.”

The former president outlined in the letter American authors and poets would made a significant impact on his life.

“Writers like Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and James Baldwin taught me something essential about our country’s character. Reading about people whose lives were very different from mine showed me how to step into someone else’s shoes. And the simple act of writing helped me develop my own identity — all of which would prove vital as a citizen, as a community organizer, and as president,” Obama said.

“Today, some of the books that shaped my life — and the lives of so many others — are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,”  he added. 

A report released by the American Library Association (ALA), covering its annual assessment of books being challenged or banned in the United States showed a dramatic increase.

According to the ALA, nearly 1,600 books in more than 700 libraries and library systems across the nation involving race, gender and the LGBTQ community, were targeted by conservative groups in many cases led by anti-LGBTQ+ groups like the Florida-based ‘Moms for Liberty.’

ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals.

Over this past year, libraries have found themselves at the center of a culture war as conservative groups led a historic effort to ban and challenge materials that address racism, gender, politics, and sexual identity. These groups sought to pull books from school and public library shelves that share the stories of people who are gay, trans, Black, Indigenous, people of color, immigrants, and refugees.

In an article published this week by The New York Times, the paper reported that as highly visible and politicized book bans have exploded across the country, librarians — accustomed to being seen as dedicated public servants in their communities — have found themselves on the front lines of an acrimonious culture war, with their careers and their personal reputations at risk.

They have been labeled pedophiles on social media, called out by local politicians and reported to law enforcement officials. Some librarians have quit after being harassed online. Others have been fired for refusing to remove books from circulation.

In his letter, he noted that Americans owe librarians a “debt of gratitude” for continuing to provide access to these stories.

“In a very real sense, you’re on the front lines — fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone,” Obama said. “Your dedication and professional expertise allow us to freely read and consider information and ideas, and decide for ourselves which ones we agree with.”

The former president also cautioned: “It’s also important to understand that the world is watching. If America — a nation built on freedom of expression — allows certain voices and ideas to be silenced, why should other countries go out of their way to protect them?”

He highlighted the valuable contributions of librarians across the country writing:

“Together, you help people become informed and active citizens, capable of making this country what they want it to be,” he wrote. “And you do it all in a harsh political climate where, all too often, you’re attacked by people who either cannot or will not understand the vital — and uniquely American — role you play in the life of our nation.”

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Congress

HRC president campaigns for Chris Pappas in NH

Gay congressman running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

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1 hour ago

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August 31, 2026

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Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson speaks at the group's 2025 National Dinner in D.C. She campaigned for U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in New Hampshire on Aug. 30, 2026. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson on Sunday campaigned for U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in New Hampshire.

Robinson traveled to Manchester, the state’s largest city, nine days before the Sept. 8 primary that will determine who will vie for retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)’s seat.

Former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, who represented New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate from 2003-2009, will face off against former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 2010-2013, in the Republican primary.

Karishma Manzur is among the Democrats challenging Pappas.

A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released on Aug. 26 shows Sununu is ahead of Brown. The same survey shows Pappas ahead of Manzur and his other Democratic challengers.

The UNH Survey Center poll shows Sununu ahead of Pappas by a 45-43 percent margin if they were to face off in the general election. The margin of error is +/-2.1 percent.

Pappas would become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate if he were to win in November.

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Congress

Chris Van Hollen says the Democratic Party needs change. Is he the one to lead it?

Senator is backing anti-establishment Democrats across the country

Published

5 days ago

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August 26, 2026

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By LEE O. SANDERLIN | The Democratic Party is having something of an identity crisis — losing to President Donald Trump twice in three elections will do that.

Should the party embrace anti-establishment figures who espouse progressive policy ideas like Medicare for all and rhetoric about unrigging the economy for the 1 percent? Or should Democrats try to appeal to moderates who want to return to semi-normalcy in a time of political upheaval?

Although he’s been in Congress since 2002, with key leadership roles throughout his tenure, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, 67, counts himself firmly in the anti-establishment camp.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Politics

Log Cabin Republicans remove transgender rights from mission

Decision made after ‘significant discussion’ with members, board

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1 week ago

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August 21, 2026

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From left, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell and then-Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran attend the Log Cabin Republicans Big Tent Event at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Log Cabin Republicans, an organization that formerly represented LGBTQ conservatives, has removed advocating for transgender and queer rights from its “renewed” national advocacy focus.

In an opinion piece written by Log Cabin Republicans President Ross Hemminger for the conservative media outlet Town Hall, he announced that trans rights would no longer be part of what the organization advocates for through conservative leadership and candidates.

In his piece, Hemminger wrote that after “significant discussion” with members and Log Cabin Republicans’ board of directors, the organization’s leadership voted to “refine Log Cabin Republicans’ national advocacy focus to concentrate specifically on issues of sexual orientation and conservative values,” a focus that does not include trans people.

“We have fought for the right to legally marry who we love, serve our country and our communities openly and proudly, and to enjoy the same inalienable rights afforded to all law-abiding Americans — and we succeeded,” Hemminger wrote. “However, the new era of gender identity politics is not the movement we supported and fought for. Gay men and women are losing public support across the country, and support for gay marriage and other once-widely accepted rights is eroding. Why? Because many voters today weren’t alive or cognizant of the politics of gay marriage winding its way through the courts and gaining ground in public opinion. Their view of the gay community is based on today’s radical transgender activists with their unnecessary and discomfiting focus on America’s youth.”

Hemminger then went on to argue that trans advocacy has shifted to focusing primarily on minors — a characterization that does not reflect the breadth of issues trans advocates address.

“They push schools to teach radical gender ideology; they want biological men in women’s sports regardless of the consequences; perhaps most offensively, they support gender reassignment treatments for minors, often without the knowledge or consent of the parents, knowing full well these treatments are mostly irreversible,” he wrote.

Hemminger and many right-wing political leaders have continued to assert this false reality as fact.

A Harvard-affiliated study found approximately 2.1 gender-affirming surgeries occur per 100,000 trans and gender-diverse minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria, underscoring how uncommon these procedures are among minors. In addition to the option of surgery for those who think it’s right for them, there is an array of other medically sound options to treat gender dysphoria, which according to KFF, an independent source for health policy research and polling, includes “medical, surgical, mental health, and non-medical services for transgender and nonbinary people.”

Additionally trans advocacy is not as narrow as Hemminger makes it seem in his opinion piece.

There are a slew of issues the trans community faces — and fights for — on a daily basis that have nothing to do with healthcare. Those include obtaining government documents that accurately reflect one’s gender identity, multiple elements of family law that include the right to marry and adopt children as straight couples can, protections from violence, hate crime protections, the right to serve in the military, access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender, and the right to education.

Despite the overwhelming number of issues trans people — regardless of political affiliation — have to struggle with as a result of systemic gaps in protections that are supposed to be afforded to everyone under the law, they remain vulnerable to unequal treatment.

Despite this shift, Log Cabin Republicans has committed to standing with the Republican Party rather than LGBTQ people as a whole. The organization was initially founded as a loosely connected network of local California social clubs made up of LGBTQ conservatives in the late 1970s before eventually emerging as a national political organization in the early 1990s under its founding executive director, Rich Tafel.

As the organization continued to gain momentum, it endorsed a handful of Republicans who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, the 2022 law that federally recognized marriage equality for same-sex couples.

The Washington Blade reached out to Log Cabin Republicans for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.

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