Library protest, Ignorance, turns into battle over illegal immigration

9news.com is reporting what amounts to a display of ignorance by anti-immigration individuals.

DENVER - A battle over alleged pornographic, Spanish-language material inside the Denver Public Library morphed Monday into a battle over illegal immigration outside the Denver Public Library.

A protest and counter-protest drew dozens of people to the Central Branch of the library to rally for their respective political causes.

The items which precipitated the debate are called fotonovellas, which according to Library Director Rick Ashton, "are a popular Spanish publication format in Latin America and the United States. They are usually fiction books which use both pictures (photos or drawings) and text to tell their stories. The most typical content is similar to that of the Mexican soap operas that you have seen on Spanish-language television."

So, allow me to be clear. I do believe Libraries should protect innocent children and prevent pornographic material, of any language, from being available in publicly funded libraries. But, this is not about that. Evidently, individuals that ignore the nature of our immigrant population turned a good battle--the battle against pornography in Libraries--into a stupid battle by brining in the issue of immigration.

I am against illegal immigration, but we have millions of law-abiding, hard working residents and citizens that enjoy or prefer to read in Spanish--I am one of those on occasion. This is what was reported:

Corbin and others said to use taxpayer money on material that is obviously offensive is revolting itself. They believe the Denver Public Library's decision to spend more resources to attract Spanish-speaking customers amounts to a misplacing of taxpayer dollars.

"They do not have a right to access our taxpayer-funded library or to dictate its policy and tell us through the library what books are going to be in."

The debate though quickly turned to immigration policy, specifically the role Spanish-language material should play in the Library.

"You always hear they want to come and work," said Robert Copley, Jr. of Sovereignty Colorado. "Well, they also want to come and kill and destroy wages and just demean our quality of life."

Why that quote? who is Robert Copley, Jr.? What does he have to do with the story? Did they go out and find the most demeaning and ignorant resident of Sovereignty Colorado, just to aggravate the issue?

This is one reason why the Bush Administration needs to do more about the immigration problem, before the media starts exploiting the ignorant to further open our boarders to illegal, and put our nation in danger. The media should also be more responsible in how it reports these stories.