{"id":311707,"date":"2026-05-12T08:29:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/311707\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T08:29:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:29:27","slug":"will-fresno-county-allow-the-library-to-participate-in-pride-month-vote-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/311707\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Fresno County allow the library to participate in Pride Month? Vote looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new Fresno County policy about which holidays can be officially recognized by employees and potentially receive public funding looks to be facing its first major test with Pride Month, the yearly recognition of queer communities that sparked the new guidelines.<\/p>\n

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors will be asked to support the Fresno County Library\u2019s request to recognize Pride Month in June as well as spend $125 for a booth space at Fresno Rainbow Pride<\/a>, which is a gathering at Fresno City College that follows the parade through the Tower District.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the library participating began drumming up support over the weekend, and many of them gathered Monday outside the Fresno County Hall of Records to continue to push for support going into the county meeting Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand with the library in its desire to serve every part of our community, including our LGBTQ neighbors, friends, family members, youth and elders,\u201d the Rev. Akiko Miyake-Stoner of United Japanese Christian Church said Monday. \u201cWe also recognize that words spoken from positions of power have real consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The supporters said they were concerned over whether the library would get enough votes after one of the supervisors spoke out against it.<\/p>\n

Supervisor Garry Bredefeld has been vocal about his disdain for what he describes as \u201cthe LGBTQ political agenda\u201d and indoctrination of children, according to a May 7 social media post<\/a>, his most recent public comments on events related to Pride Month.<\/p>\n

His post said he received a letter from a constituent who said their 13-year-old was given a bookmark at school that depicted books with LGBTQ content. He said he\u2019s learned the library staff would hand out more bookmarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why I will fight against what the library is doing and return our libraries to an environment that is safe for children, is free of any political ideology, and promotes literacy programs in a transparent and healthy manner,\u201d he wrote in the post.<\/p>\n

Bredefeld last year championed the county\u2019s new more-restrictive policy adopted<\/a> in July after he saw the Fresno County Health Department had passed out condoms, lube and educational brochures. He said county staffers estimated the county spent about $6,000.<\/p>\n

Pride supporters said last year the county had been a long-time participant in the events going back at least a decade.<\/p>\n

Bredefeld campaigned against any Pride displays at the library. The display last year at the downtown Central Library was a shelf near the entrance that featured books related to the lives of the members of the gay, lesbian, trans and other queer communities.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Fresno County Library location in downtown had a Pride Month display up on June 10, 2025.<\/p>\n

Outside the pre-approved holidays on the county\u2019s list \u2014 like Christmas and Juneteenth \u2014 county employees are now required to ask the supervisors for permission to recognize the events in places like the library or to spend money.<\/p>\n

Advocates for the queer community argued the library should be a safe place for exploration, noting young people can get to books and other media without having to pay for it.<\/p>\n

Providing spaces for members of a community that is not always welcome could go a long way to comforting those young people, according to Tracie Cisneros, a volunteer with Fresno Rainbow Pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttempts to remove or restrict LGBTQ+ visibility in our public spaces, especially in our libraries, does not protect our children, however, it does put them in grave danger of self harm and even death,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is not an exaggeration. That is a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

LGBTQ+ teens are more likely to commit self-harm and report higher rates of suicidal ideation than heterosexual teens, according to well-established academic research tracked by the National Institute of Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not allowing library staff to participate in the event amounts to censorship, and sends the wrong message to the young and vulnerable, according to Stetler Brown, a professor of communications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to learn about what we are telling our students, our citizens of the Valley, that if their stories are not wanted in the library, what does that mean about their worth in the world?\u201d he said. \u201cSo I\u2019m here to push back. You all belong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new Fresno County policy about which holidays can be officially recognized by employees and potentially receive public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,1907,622,114,113,113332,130629,124568,37157,130630],"class_list":["post-311707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-city-college","tag-fresno-county","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-pride-month","tag-queer-communities","tag-rainbow-pride","tag-supervisor-garry-bredefeld","tag-united-japanese-christian-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}