A local church is urging its members to permanently remove books from the Shelby County Public Library by checking them out and never returning them. The books portray gay characters and historical figures or explore LGBTQ+ themes.
Pamela Wilson Federspiel, who has been director of the library in downtown Shelbyville for 34 years, says the action is tantamount to “stealing.”
But three leaders of the Reformation Church of Shelbyville defend what they call an “act of civil disobedience.”
Civil disobedience and “petty crime” aren’t mutually exclusive. It is integral to civil disobedience that laws are broken. Also there is probably a difficulty and lots of legal debate about when violating a civil contract, borrowing an item for a specified time, becomes theft of the item by not returning it.
I think non of these should be the question here though. It is simply a dick move.