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Exhibit Complainant Defends Free Speech in Mesa CountyA retired attorney who voiced an objection in February to an anti-gay exhibit at the Mesa County (Colo.) Public Library District has convinced trustees not to add any restrictions or prior approval requirements to the library’s display policy.“Let the display go up,” Bill Hugenberg told trustees at a special April 5 meeting. Board attorney Susan Corle agreed, explaining that a proposed policy revision that would have mandated prescreening exhibits for obscenity could be construed as prior restraint, which “gets government into trouble,” the April 6 Grand Junction Sentinel reported. “If somebody objects, we have an appeal process,” board member Jean Yale agreed. “You’re doing the right thing,” echoed area resident Carol Anderson, whose exhibit had motivated Hugenberg to complain in the first place. MCPLD Public Services Director Shana Wade told American Libraries that the board plans at its April 25 meeting to review a draft of a revised exhibit policy that will mandate every exhibit to have a disclaimer that it does not represent the library’s viewpoint. It was the lack of such a statement in Anderson’s display that upset Hugenberg, who, Wade said, asserted that the Leviticus passage quoted on the display could be interpreted by some as hate speech. The draft policy also specifies a mechanism for requesting an exhibit’s reconsideration; the current policy invites people who disagree with a display’s message “to submit their own exhibit, which will be scheduled at the first available time.” Posted April 13, 2007. |
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