© Tulane Public Relations
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed the lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of Salem resident Anaka Hunter, who was unable to access websites pertaining to the religions for her own research.
Hunter brought the blocked websites to the attention of Salem Library Director Glenda Wofford, but Wofford responded there was nothing she could do about the websites, which were blocked by the library's filtering system. Wofford said she would only allow access to blocked sites if she felt patrons had a legitimate reason to view the content and further said that she had an "obligation" to call the "proper authorities" to report people who wanted to view the sites, according to the lawsuit.
"It's unbelievable that I should have to justify why I want to access completely harmless websites on the Internet simply because they discuss a minority viewpoint," Hunter said. "It's wrong and demeaning to deny access to this kind of information."
The library is required by law to have a filtering system that prevents children from accessing obscene images and other content that is harmful to minors.
The Netsweeper filtering software used by the library classifies websites as "adult image," "criminal skills," "extreme," "general," "occult," "pornography," and "religion," among other classifications. The software allows library administrators to determine which categories are blocked.
The "occult" category includes the official webpage of the Wiccan church, the Wikipedia entry pertaining to Wicca, Astrology.com and The Encyclopedia on Death and Dying, which contains viewpoint-neutral discussions of various religions' ideas of death.
The ACLU said the library went too far by blocking any site marked as "occult" or "criminal skills," decrying the discrimination against non-mainstream religions and beliefs. The group noted that sites marked as "occult" were not likely to contain pornographic images.
"The library has no business blocking these websites as 'occult' or 'criminal' in the first place and certainly shouldn't be making arbitrary follow-up decisions based on the personal predilections of library staff," said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. "Public libraries should be facilitating access to educational information, not blocking it."
Who was responsible for this decision? I assure you it was Christian related. States are being overrun by evangelicals. This cult has decided that they are the speakers for God and will dictate how our communities should and will run. It has infected the entire south and mid west. Utah. Mixing Politics and Religion is not good. It is no wonder the medical industry (Christian Science) has introduced so many mind altering prescription pills. It keeps everybody mowing their lawns and keeping you paranoid. This is not a Democracy if our minds are altered while something evil is trying to take over the world. Imagine a World Theocracy. Imagine the mind of the leader. Imagine everyone drinking water from the main pipe. Wiccan seems to be just as equal in weight of faith so it has every right to be accessed. A cult is a cult. Free yourself from The Institution.