It’s undeniably true, as a colleague pointed out last week, that the ability to peacefully assemble at a public venue is a central component of exercising our First Amendment rights. Contrary to the wishes of certain vocal local activists, however, this constitutional right does not solely extend to Nazis marching through a suburb, conspiracy theorists rallying in a public park, or firearm enthusiasts discussing how best to legally hide their weapons in a public library.

For a while now, protestors have been regularly showing up to Washoe County commission meetings to complain about the county library system’s continued hosting of Drag Queen Story Hour. This, of course, is nothing new — protestors showed up the first time the county library system hosted Drag Queen Story Hour in 2019, too.

For a while now, some local politicians have been regularly pandering to those protestors. After library board chair Amy Ghilieri publicly told the commission that “libraries should have something that offends everyone” — a statement of both constitutional and observational fact — the Republican majority of the county commission voted against reappointing her to the board. Legally notorious offensive speech enthusiast and county commissioner Mike Clark, when asked why he voted against her reappointment, claimed that, “This particular board has been a real polarizing situation in the community.”

What did the board do that was so polarizing? Well, that’s a good question. 

Statutorily, the job of a library board is to appoint a librarian and submit a budget to the county commission each year. Library boards, contrary to the belief of some, are not responsible for determining if Drag Queen Story Hour (or Guns in the Library) will be hosted in a public library. The board is also not responsible for determining which books will be kept in stock in the library, contrary to the wishes of some — a lesson, by the way, which Pahrump’s library trustees are apparently planning on learning the hard way in a constitutional court of law.

Politically, on the other hand, the purpose of Washoe County’s library board will apparently be to nudge the library’s operations towards the stated desires of the dozens of public commenters who keep complaining during county commission meetings — and away from the demonstrated desires of the hundreds of parents who keep bringing their families to Drag Queen Story Hour. Drag Queen Story Hour, it turns out, is immensely popular, at least for a library event — the most recently hosted event filled the Downtown Reno library to capacity, just as the Sparks library was filled to capacity when the event was first hosted in 2019.

Even if it wasn’t popular, however, the county library system still would have no legal power nor constitutional authority to cancel the event. The rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly on public property apply just as evenly to edgy conservative college students as they do to people who wish to read stories to children while wearing drag. Thanks, in part, to the precedent established by a small group of intolerant Illinoisan fascists in the 1970s, the government no longer has the legal authority to suppress speech it, or the community it governs, finds distasteful.

That the government no longer has the legal authority to suppress distasteful speech, however, suggests there was a time when the government could do so — and why shouldn’t it? Why is it easier to hold a casino accountable for the speech they host in their exhibition hall than it is to hold a democratically elected government accountable for the speech it hosts in our public property? Surely our government should be responsive to the will of the people?

The short answer lies in an aphorism which is commonly misattributed to Winston Churchill: “You can depend upon Americans to do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted every other possibility.” 

Over the course of two centuries, America’s local, state and federal elected officials have all attempted to suppress speech they or a majority of their voters (their interests don’t always align) found distasteful. They censored supporters of the French Revolution, suppressed the distribution of literature calling for the abolition of slavery, criminalized the distribution of anything mentioning birth control or abortion, jailed outspoken political opponents, blacklisted ideological opponents, jammed the wheels of government on needless investigations of other government officials, and repeatedly arrested and harassed civil rights leaders.

Even now, Nevada has two statutes still on the books — NRS 203.115 and NRS 203.117 — which seek to limit political speech despite the explicit constitutional prohibitions against such measures established in Brandenburg v. Ohio. Meanwhile, states like Tennessee and Arkansas have passed anti-drag laws — laws which were quickly challenged in court.

Our unelected Supreme Court undeniably has its flaws, but, on the importance of the First Amendment, it has, through a painstaking process of trial and effort, learned to enforce each and every clause. Elected members of the government, enabled by voters and supporters who want their side to have all of the rights and their opponents to have all of the liabilities, will, if given the smallest mote of a chance, infringe upon the the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances — and yes, will infringe upon the free exercise of religion, frequently by passing laws establishing specific religious practices as governmental policy.

The Constitution and decades of case law are clear — you have the right to say whatever you want in public comment, but nothing you say there will grant you or the politicians you elect the right to control the speech or peaceable assemblies of others in public facilities. The facts of decades of case law, designed to overcome over two centuries of governmental abuses, don’t care about your feelings regarding the contents of any of the books or presentations held in your public library.

David Colborne ran for public office twice. He is now an IT manager, the father of two sons, and a weekly opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected], on Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social, on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [email protected].