A wife of a Navy SEAL has criticized her local library in California as she claims staff refused to let her host a patriotic book reading for a Veteran's Day story time.
Rachel Racz, a mother of two living in Coronado, claimed that her local library gave "absurd" excuses as to why she could not host holiday story times in an interview on Fox & Friends posted to the Fox News website on Saturday.
"In June they read sexually explicit books to toddlers and a lot of parents spoke out in protest. In response to this, my husband and I decided to be proactive, and we started the Tiny Patriots—which is essentially a story time for toddlers to hear pro-America, pro-family books," Racz said. "We launched with a Veterans Day story time where we had local SEAL dads and other veterans reading great books and we were told we couldn't host this event at the public library."
Racz added: "Honestly it's absurd, to me, in a community full of heroes—Navy SEALs where my husband trains to defend our freedoms overseas, we're now fighting for these basic constitutional rights at our home."
The Coronado Public Library received public outcry after making a children's book display to celebrate Pride month in June and reading a children's book about a Pride parade at a story time.
The backlash received by the local library was seen on a national scale during Pride month, some going as far as to boycott brands with LGBTQ+-friendly marketing. In recent years, conservatives have pushed anti-LGBTQ+ policies, especially targeting LGBTQ+ youth, with book bans in schools and libraries, and the banning of gender-affirming care for transgender children.
Racz felt like the library gave her the run-around when she pushed for other story time events.
"On Veteran's Day we were told that SEALs couldn't read to their children due to being too dangerous and needing background checks. So, after agreeing to background checks, we asked to have a Christmas event and they told us there were too many story times at the library. When I pushed back on that and I asked for a date closer to Easter, they basically lied to me and claimed that the policy has changed where now they prevented volunteer readers," Racz said.
Racz claimed that although her Christmas story time request was denied, the library hosted a Hannukah reading hour. The library did also host a Santa Storytime.
"It's a clear issue that the library is picking and choosing which groups can read and excluding groups that individual librarians don't want. And I honestly, can't for the life of me, understand why they have a problem with patriotic books in the world's most patriotic Island," Racz said.
The Coronado Public Library said on Facebook: "The library as a governmental agency does not do nor is it allowed to do religious programming. The Hannukah storytime is not a religious storytime - it is about the culture and traditions of Hanukah. Just as Santa is a cultural [and] not religious figure."
Newsweek reached out to the Coronado Public Library via phone for comment.
Responding to Racz's story, Representative Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "Let me get this straight: public libraries are promoting drag queen story hour but won't let veterans read patriotic stories to children? This is outrageous."
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