The Augusta County Library in Fishersville has cancelled a pride event scheduled for Monday at the direction of the Board of Supervisors.
The library made the announcement Thursday night on social media.
“Our planned Pride Month program has been cancelled following direction by the Board of Supervisors,” said the statement. “Augusta County Library remains deeply committed to serving everyone in our community. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we will provide updates if our community partners make additional plans.”
According to a flyer promoting the event, the ACL Pride Day was to include a name change station, board and video game room, craft room, red carpet photo booth, collaborative splatter art, melted crayon art, mocktails, cookie swap, movie screening, laser tag and multiple vendors. The event was scheduled to run from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. with an after-hours component offered from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Augusta Free Press reached out to all seven members of the Board of Supervisors individually for comment. None replied to AFP.
Instead, the Augusta County Board of Supervisors issued a joint reply sent through Communications Manager Mia Kivlighan, who said the library’s director was informed of the decision yesterday.
“County Administrator Tim Fitzgerald reached out to Jennifer [Brown, the library’s director] yesterday and informed her of the Board of Supervisors’ direction to cancel the event.
“The Augusta County Board of Supervisors, the Augusta County Library Board and county administration were not informed in advance of the planned Library Pride Day program and only became aware of it recently.
“The Board of Supervisors determined that additional vetting and consideration of the event was warranted and felt it best to cancel the event.
“The board wishes to thank the individual members of the community who have reached out with emails and calls,” the statement read.
AFP did follow-up asking if it was common practice for the library to run its events by the Board of Supervisors for their stamp of approval. We have not received a reply.
Fitzgerald told AFP that the library meeting was not discussed in a regular meeting of the board.
“Direction from the board was given to me through the chairman,” Fitzgerald said.
AFP also reached out to the library for additional comment. Media inquiries were directed to Jennifer Brown, the library’s director, who had an auto-responder set up on her email that said she was out of the office through Monday. Kivlighan said our media inquiry was forwarded to her from Brown.
This isn’t the first time that Augusta County was in the news opposing the LGBTQ+ community.
The Augusta County School Board held an emergency meeting last year after a student’s art was “seen as offensive to some” and set to be included in a showcase at Fort Defiance High School. The artist said the piece represented growing up queer in a religious home and being seen as evil. The school board ultimately decided not to take any action on the matter, and the art show went on as planned.
Social media thread intense, commenting shut down by library
Keith Bell, who identified himself as a librarian at ACL, did speak up on the Facebook thread and said the library staff and library board did not have any role in the decision to cancel the event.
“While we are immensely disappointed in this decision and were/are in full cooperation in the answering of any questions, discussions and addressing concerns, we respect the decision of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors and kindly ask that any comments on this post mirror our philosophy as a library system – providing dignity, empathy and safe and engaging spaces for all peoples of our wonderful community, no questions asked,” Bell wrote.
Comments were eventually shut down on the post, according to the library, “due to the continued intensity of some of the comments.”
The comments were predominantly expressing outrage over the cancellation with residents saying they would contact supervisors to express their feelings on the matter.
However, some community members used the cancellation as an excuse to demean the queer community, calling them “very sick humans” and worse.
“Praise God there are people with common sense. Nobody cares about this garbage or pride parades,” wrote Ronnie Wanda Williams, who seemed to be leading the anti-LGBTQ charge on the social media thread.
Another person said the decision was “ignorant and bigoted.”
“So I guess the Board of Supervisors won’t be accepting/expecting tax dollars from members of the LGBTQ+ community which helps to fund this library and all other public libraries?! Libraries are for EVERYONE period,” wrote Schyler Wiecek.
“And if you’ve ever wondered why pride events are even necessary in the first place – this very ignorant and bigoted decision by this ‘board’ is the EXACT reason why pride events are so important,” Wiecek wrote.
The cancellation also led to talk about the need for new leadership in Augusta County.
“Canceling Pride Month is a disgraceful decision – an embarrassing display of backward thinking,” wrote Betty Argenbright. “It might be time for an entire new leadership team, one that belongs to this century and not stuck thumbing through the past like it’s a virtue.”
Businesses weigh in on pride event cancellation
Several local business leaders also weighed in after the announcement.
“As a citizen of Augusta County and a big fan of libraries as safe spaces, I find this really concerning and troubling,” said Megan Giltner, owner of the Charlottesville-based Derriere de Soie.
“I know that generally the county is pretty conservative, but I hold out hope that maybe we all want to build safer, more inclusive spaces so that our children can grow up being comfortable in themselves, become well educated and thrive as adults,” she said.
Seventy-three percent of Augusta County voters choose Donald Trump for president in November’s election.
“I feel that our libraries are such a vital resource for respectful discourse, diverse opinions and should be accessible to all our community members,” Giltner said.
Faded Poppy owners and LGBTQ allies Jason and Sara Beth Kite wrote in part: “Events such as these being canceled sends a message that we are not a welcoming community and do not care about our neighbors. It’s hurtful, disgraceful and economically irresponsible.
“You don’t have to lean left or lean right, be conservative or progressive, vote red or blue to understand that canceling an event like this leads to others being canceled, until, one day we have none,” wrote the Waynesboro business owners.
“We are not OK with that and hope that you aren’t either.”
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Crystal Graham
