By Alysse ElHage
North Carolina Family Policy Council
With roughly 9,000 public libraries and just over 82,000 public school libraries in the United States, American citizens of every age have the freedom to access a wealth of information and perspectives, mainly free of charge and without restriction. But what happens when unencumbered intellectual freedom threatens to steal the innocence of childhood and/or invade the domain of family values? At what point should the “right to read” be curtailed to protect children from objectionable material and the rights of their parents to direct their upbringing? The American Library Association’s answers to these questions should alarm parents about the safety of libraries in their communities. Read the rest of this policy paper (requires Adobe reader).