Earlier this morning, I posted about Jennifer Meeks, the wife of an Arkansas GOP Congressman, who posted to Facebook that she has been "swapping out books in little free libraries for awhile," adding "From what I have seen, a lot of these books and other things don't align with our Christian values. Today I saw a bunch of Pride stuff in one."
Meeks said she was adding Bibles, "good devotion books," and "kids' Bible stories." She added, "a gospel tract is a nice idea too." She told one commenter on Facebook, "I have taken out a bad one and left a good one in its place."
Meeks has drawn quite a bit of criticism for her self-appointed role as an officer of the promotion of Christian virtue and prevention of Non-Christian vice squad, so much so that her husband, Jeff Meeks, has stepped in with a dubious explanation. He told The Arkansas Times that her statement about "swapping out" "bad" books was about replacing worn-out copies of books with newer versions, not removing Pride books and replacing them with Christian books.
He also complained to Newsweek that darn communists were twisting her words for nefarious purposes.
Meeks' husband said that her words were being taken out of context and clarified that she did not take out any LGBTQ-related materials in exchange for the bibles she has added to the libraries, nor would she advocate for others to do something similar.
"Somebody on the left took that and interpreted it as my wife going all over central Arkansas, pulling Pride books out of these little libraries and replacing them with bibles and nothing is further from the truth," Stephen Meeks told Newsweek. "My wife would not do that. She would not advocate for that. She would be opposed to that."
Above image from Faulkner County Coalition for Social Justice.
