When Benjamin Franklin instituted the first public library in the U.S., his initial goal was for equal access to knowledge for citizens of all walks of life. Books at the time were too expensive for the everyday American to purchase.

He once said, “These Libraries have improved the general Conversation of Americans, made the common Tradesmen and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some Degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in Defence of their Priviledges.”

Today, the American Library Association (ALA) trains librarians and is the gatekeeper of books. It has long been considered a left-wing organization, and its latest choice for president confirms this. The ALA has just elected Emily Drabinski, who is a self-ascribed “Marxist lesbian,” according to her triumphant social media post. She said: “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity! And my mom is SO PROUD I love you mom!”

According to The Federalist’s Joy Pullman, “Drabinski posts openly on her Twitter feed in support of sexually exposing children, union-led political strife, socialist politicians, and libraries pushing explicit and far-left material on unwilling taxpayers.” Pullman has found other evidence that suggests Drabinski will actively use her position to push sexually explicit material and other sordid texts specifically directed at children. She claims there’s “no big library agenda,” but what is obvious to anyone with half a brain is that whoever controls the books placed in public, taxpayer-funded libraries controls the ideas and the discourse of the public.

Drabinski’s goals ostensibly are getting her students and readers to be critical thinkers. She uses the banner of diversifying book choices. Having the opportunity to read many authors, especially those you may not agree with, is indeed a good way to engage debate with authority as an adult. The problem comes when you use this idea of critical thinking when it comes to children. Drabinski’s brand of “critical thinking” is like living out the plot of Aristophanes’s “The Clouds” — we send our children to learn to think and speak and they come back contemptuous for all social mores and authority. It is therefore no longer critical thinking but indoctrination.

Here is an example from one of Drabinski’s presentations on “queering” in the Library of Congress. She directly attacked the social norm of the nuclear family, saying, “For those of us whose queerness includes the subversion of those kinds of normal family types, this ideological story excludes us, and the ways we form familial connections and how we engage in reproductive labor.” In her concluding remarks, she said, “We can equip our students with the capacity to wring what they need out of library structures, and wringing what you need out of systems that exclude you is a necessary life skill for survival and revolution.”

Political pundit Andrew Klavan said recently that people have a right to norms and normalcy. This is why the nuclear family dominates the conversation and the storytelling language of books. But the pushing of “queerness” and “revolution” in the library and through books is indoctrination. At best, it is an attempt to make the outlier the norm. At worst, it exposes vulnerable, impressionable children to the worst sort of explicit sexual deviancy. This is not “progress.” It is the same type of indoctrination being pushed in schools and in sports. It has no tolerance for competing ideas or criticism and lacks the solid backing of the truth. It is a path to destruction.