Public officials’ actions can be flawed or a fraud. Yet some people applaud.
June 12, Salina’s city commission offered a prime example. A routine proclamation was read and signed by the mayor. It recognized Pride Month and celebrated LGBTQ contributions to city, state and country. Standard stuff.
Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when new commissioner and soon-to-be-mayor Bill Longbine rose up, announced he was recusing himself and walked out of the meeting.
The next meeting, he was called to task during public comments. His response: “I do have deeply held beliefs and values. This did conflict with my beliefs and values, and I have that right.”
Following calls for an apology, three rose instead to applaud Longbine’s action. All were members of a like-minded local group, including one of their leaders, Chad Farber, a pastor and city commission candidate. Farber has long been outspoken against freedom for teachers in public schools and an opponent of city regulation, including for public health measures, vaccines or otherwise. Like Longbine, he consistently proclaims that his faith, first and foremost, will guide his public policy votes.
To be fair, it can be argued Longbine’s action harmed no one. No one was shot. No one was fired. No harm, no foul.
But here’s the rub: As commissioner, even Salina’s formal ethics code requires Longbine serve and respect all the public. His public trust includes a commitment to growth and working toward mutual understanding. Given his stance, future votes of greater consequence may be, well, more consequential.
His lack of commitment to examine his religious ideas (“moral” or not) means he can’t be trusted to vote in everyone’s best interest. His religion hems us in. By self-proclamation, he is capable of — and in a sense, committed to — inflicting harm, in the right circumstance.
This is dangerous.
Think such things can’t happen? Consider this: In Sterling, both city librarians lost their jobs because they had the temerity to use a rainbow in a book display.
As Dion Lefler of the Wichita Eagle editorialized: “It used to be you could get fired from a government job for being too prejudiced. Now, in Sterling, Kansas, you get fired for not being prejudiced enough.”
According to Lefler, Sterling library board vice president Michelle Miller said: “I do not want any kind of rainbow display … especially in this month. We are in Pride Month. People are on display. We have a conservative town and as a library, do not need to make political statements like Target and Bud Light.”
The Sterling Library Board is not elected. The mayor is on that board. He appoints other members submitted by the existing board. In this way, unaccountable public officials just cost accountable public servants their jobs.
In Saint Marys, officials aren’t removing the librarian. They’re trying to remove the library. The city commission again threatens to end the library’s building lease unless their religious doctrines prevail.
So much for the freedom to read.
