‘Pastor Story Hour’ Wins Big Victory Against Discriminating Library

Read time: 3 minutes 55 seconds

The last few years have shown that the American Library Association is dead-set against Christian and conservative values.

With the association’s embracing of drag story hours for children and DEI initiatives, while constantly cancelling biblically based alternatives, the ALA have shown that they will go to any lengths to push a far-left agenda on children.

The tactics used in refusing equal treatment of Christian story hours are unconstitutional, and the ALA knows this.

This was the case for Pastor Kendall Lankford of Massachusetts.

Lankford, the teaching pastor at The Shepherd’s Church, had to endure the cancellation of his story hour, and even local protests, that taught children godly and scientifically based views on gender.

The “Pastor Story Hour” he was to host at Chelmsford Public Library read from two books: “God Made Boys and Girls: Helping Children Understand the Gift of Gender,” and “Jesus and My Gender.”

“I didn’t use the word intersectional or critical race theory, but that’s the world we live in,” explained Lankford. “Where if you’re a boy you have less victim status than a girl. I was trying to show them—it’s a good thing that you were made a boy. It’s a good thing that you were made a girl.

“Every single child in the room got that, it’s the adults that are confused,” he added.

What happened next to Lankford proved without a doubt the warnings that Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon told Charisma News in an exclusive interview: if you do not affirm these unbiblical, unscientific and destructive social views for children, you will be accused of being a bigot and hateful when standing up for the truth.

In an interview with Fox News, Lankford stood by his words when he said drag queens were “adult perverts with a penchant for sexualizing children.”

With countless videos showing sexual performances at “family friendly drag shows” circulating in social media, his words ring true about the nature of these gatherings that many call grooming sessions for children.

“We’ve gotten to a place in society where we can’t even have any meaningful discussions anymore without someone throwing a temper tantrum. The adults have left it seems, and we’re in a country full of toddlers—and I don’t say that to be inflammatory or mean,” Lankford says.

“If we’re truly a pluralistic society, and we have tolerance for all views then we ought to be able to talk about those views in a meaningful way,” he continued.

After going through the process of setting up and getting the story hour approved by the library, Lankford received an email the day before he was scheduled to host the reading saying it was cancelled. The email stated it was for “violations of the library’s meeting room and acceptable behavior policies,” because they accused Lankford of “proselytizing.”

When Lankford found out about this, he retained the Massachusetts Family institute (MFI) who offered their services when they heard about the protests stemming from the reading.

In less than four hours, and a discussion between library directors and a Chelmsford attorney, the event was back on.

Just like that.

The library released a statement following the reversal:

“We believe the library needs to be a public space where every member of our community feels valued and welcome,” the library said. “We now recognize that our disappointment that actions taken subsequent to the approval of the reservation, and communications immediately before the event, seemed to violate some details of library policy and directs hate at members of our community played too large a role in our decision, to the detriment of our commitment to everyone’s right to free speech.”

Using some discernment one can see that the library got caught infringing on a pastor’s Constitutional rights and the attorney warned them that they would pay big in a court of law.

Lankford is thankful that the event took place without a hitch and had an excellent showing with around 30 children and 50-60 parents attending the reading.

The pastor believes in the importance of standing up to the lessons being pushed on children today and that Christians need to be out in the public square sharing the gospel of Christ.

“You can tell us to go hole up in our churches but what you’re essentially telling us is that our faith doesn’t belong in the public square, and I reject that notion,” he said. “We have just as much right to be Christians on Monday and Tuesday as we do privately on Sunday.” {eoa}

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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.