Iowa Man Who Burned LGBTQ Library Books on Facebook Live Fined

An Iowa man who made a show out of burning LGBTQ books from his local library just got off with a meager fine.

Paul Dorr burned the books while streaming on Facebook Live last October, claiming that it was in protest of the library’s Drag Queen Story Time.

“Continuing my 25 year stand for Christ, I cannot stand by and let the shameful adults there at the Orange City library board bring the next group of little children into their foul sexual reality without a firm resistance,” he said in the video.

“I’m going to do right now what the German church leaders should have done in 1933, and I’m going to burn these copies of these shameful and wicked books.”

He went on to destroy city-owned copies of Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan, This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman, Families, Families, Families! by Suzanne and Max Lang, and Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino, slamming each one for their inclusive content.

Dorr was arrested after he failed to return the books to the library, and originally mounted a defense invoking his First Amendment right.

“Mr. Dorr isn’t being sent the message that he cannot burn books when he disagrees with the contents of those books. He is being sent the message that he cannot burn books that do not belong to him,” the magistrate who found him guilty of fifth-degree criminal mischief said in her ruling.

But though that crime could be punishable with up to a $625 fine and a 30 day jail sentence, Dorr got off with nothing more than a $65 fine — less than you would likely pay if you had to reimburse the library for the cost of four lost books and the additional fees associated with that.

“The destruction of books from a public library is a clear attempt to shut down the open sharing and discussion of ideas,” said ACLU of Iowa’s Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen. “No one person or even group should decide that they are the gatekeepers of ideas for the rest of the public.”