The British destroyed our original Library of Congress and the 3,000 books it housed, in 1814 during the War of 1812.

Following that loss, Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his collection of 6,487 books to the Library for whatever price Congress fixed as the value. Congress paid him $23,950.

At the time, Jefferson had the largest and finest library in the entire New World. It contained classics in politics, history, philosophy, law, literature, science and fine arts.

Today, the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world and holds 173 million items, 39 million of them are books. Every day 15,000 items are added to the collection by the library’s 3,000 employees.

Libraries are places where our history is stored. Where truths already discovered can be easily found. Where, through story and legend, we can be spurred to pursue dangerous challenges, be motivated to overcome heartbreaking adversity, be inspired to courageous self-sacrifice. They are repositories of our history and the history of peoples around the world. They keep the record of our discoveries in math and physics, music and art.

Libraries track the noble and the common, the beautiful and the hideous. Almost every community has one. The purpose of libraries is to help make us better.

Are they? Are they making us better?

Do the drag queen story hours for children — as many libraries have started to offer — make us or our children better? Do books like Crank in the teen section, a book that makes meth use and teen rape seem acceptable, seem good? Are books like It’s Perfectly Normal which encourages children ten and up to experiment with all manner of sexual activities inspiring?

Something has gone completely wrong with our libraries. My own local library has three dozen titles by Ellen Hopkins the sick author of Crank, the-written-for-teen obscenity. My library, the Schaumburg Township Library, is not an isolated example. Why?

The simple explanation is we are hiring the wrong people to be librarians.

A few weeks ago Emily Drabinski took over as President of the American Library Association. She ran for the position openly as a Marxist and as a lesbian.

I won’t get into the deep weeds of her lesbian identity for this article, although it is relevant because she wants libraries to be more LGBT-friendly places for children by stocking more books that promote the lifestyle. Presumably, she favors such books as It’s Perfectly Normal, and maybe This Book is Gay, a book that teaches boys how to engage in mutual masturbation.

There are many other such books in our libraries as well. She also falsely characterizes, as book banning, attempts to keep books like these out of the children and teen sections.

It’s her Marxist ideology that is most concerning, though.

How is it possible that anyone could be elected to any important position who is openly a Marxist? Drabinski was elected by other librarians. The American Library Association has almost 50,000 members, most of whom are librarians and most of them work for public libraries. Drabinski campaigned as a Marxist.

In the hundred-plus years since the Russian Revolution, Marxism has been responsible for 200 million deaths. The Marxist ideology that embraces abortion has added many hundreds of millions more globally. It is corrosive to every founding principle of our nation, to the Judeo-Christian beliefs of our Founding Fathers, and to the family structure from which government was modeled.

These librarians who elected Drabinski must not be reading any history of Marxism in their own libraries. Or maybe they have.

Then there is the pornography that has taken over many of the library stacks and the online resources provided by the modern librarians.

Why do these librarians think it is important to expose children to stories of rape and incest, and how-to manuals on every manner of sexual activity? They know it’s obscene, otherwise, they would not be one of the two biggest lobbying groups to block the repeal of the obscenity exemption for teachers and librarians.

In 42 states, teachers and librarians are exempt from prosecution for exposing obscene materials to children. Illinois is one of those states.

The other big group preventing the repeal of that exemption is teachers through their unions.

Why are local library boards hiring people who believe that Marxism and providing obscene materials to children are a public good? Why are we electing people who hire those who have such twisted thinking?

Christians still outnumber every other group in the United States. This is another example where we are failing to influence the culture as we are all called to do. In this case, it is an especially grievous failure.

We are allowing children to be led astray. In fact, we are complicit in it.

Our job is to guide every aspect of our children’s upbringing. We will be held responsible for it.

Yet, most of us don’t even vote in library board or school board elections. If we do, we have no idea what the people believe or make no effort to hold them accountable after they are elected. We don’t know the issues. We don’t know what books are in the children’s sections. We don’t know what our own children are reading.

In two local election cycles, all this could change if every Christian would wake up and follow the instruction manual, the Bible, we have been given.

Engage the culture.

Jesus said to His disciples:

“Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. – Luke 17:1-2