Books have always been amazing gateways to new worlds, valuable resources for information and wonderful ways to pass the time without commercial interruptions.

They can also, when necessary, serve as a valuable tool to smack ignorant people upside the head, and believe me when I say that they provide a satisfying thump. To further that analogy, libraries make for incredible arsenals to combat those who want to dictate what we read.

Once again, bibliophiles have to stand up and defend the warehouses of knowledge from those with no inkling of what is inside the books—folks like Gene McGee, the mayor of Ridgeland, Mississippi. “Hizzoner” decided to stick it to his city’s library by withholding more than $110,000 in funds from it and won’t let it go until the library staff purges its shelves of what he calls “homosexual materials.”

According to the Mississippi Free Press, McGee was demanding that any books that touch on homosexual identities must go. That indicates that it’s not only the books specifically geared toward LGBTQ themes and issues that must be tossed, but also any book that happens to have a gay best friend, lesbian coffee shop barista or transgender game show contestant. How does McGee plan to see this is carried out—read every book in the library himself and say “You’re the weakest link. Goodbye.”

One specific book that McGee targeted in his conversation with the library is “The Queer Bible,” which has a bunch of essays by LGBT figures like Elton John and Munroe Bergdorf. Another book profiled in the story is “Grandad’s Camper” by Harry Woodgate, a nonbinary author who tells the story of a young girl learning about her late grandfather while on a road trip with the surviving grandparent.

McGee said in the Free Press story that the books went against his Christian beliefs and that “he only serves the great Lord above.” I hate to break it to the guy, but trying to keep books out of a public institution and out of the hands of people is more the devil’s work than God’s. Just ask Adolf Hitler.

Of course, anyone trying to go up against an arsenal should probably make sure he has backup, but apparently McGee took this action unilaterally without the blessing of the city’s board of aldermen. He took the step even though there was no legal basis to do so, according to Bob Sanders, the library’s attorney. When you do something in the service of the Lord, you do it the right way, and breaking the law is not the right way.

This issue not only bugs me as a decent, open-minded person, but it also bugs me as an author who creates stories with gay protagonists. If the Ridgeland library has any of my books on its shelves (which I doubt), then that makes my work a target, as well.

What people like McGee don’t realize is that, if they popped open a book with an LGBT theme, they might realize that they’re reading about some of their neighbors, the ordinary folks that mingle among them. Not all of the books are full of freaky sex, other forms of debauchery or subtle forms of brainwashing that will make little Johnny hump another boy.

Sadly, censorship has been part of society since the beginning of time. Books are banned, censored and railed against for a variety of reasons. Even the Bible, most likely Gene McGee’s favorite book, has been banned in some forums. It doesn’t make it any less frustrating that there seems to be a concentrated effort to target books that benefit the LGBT community as of late, and it’s just a sobering reminder of how closed-minded some people in power can be.

By that, I mean that McGee is not the only perpetrator of this particularly egregious sin. A couple of school board members in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, have called for banned books to be burned and even suggested the burning be held publicly, and one of them was recently named the board’s president. The new president, Kirk Twigg, even said that he wants to “see the books before we burn them, so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

Last October, a state representative in Texas demanded that schools identify any books on their shelves that cover topics related to sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases, along with books that might make students experience “discomfort” or “psychological distress.”

Then there’s the other T state in the union, Tennessee, where one of its state officials introduced a bill that would prohibit public schools from allowing books that even mention LGBTQ people. That means no textbooks that talk about Harvey Milk, the Stonewall Riots or the long march to marriage equality.

There’s also a battle brewing in South Carolina, where the governor is calling for the removal of the book “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe. He also went on to ask the state superintendent of education to “begin a comprehensive investigation into the presence of obscene and pornographic materials” in schools.

To read news story after news story about some of these people, it’s abundantly clear that most of them have never read the books they’re railing against, but I shouldn’t be surprised, as many politicians will vote on bills and laws without reading what’s in them. If you don’t know what something contains, how do you have the audacity to tell other people they’re not allowed to read it?

This is America. You have the right to state your point of view on a book, even if you’ve never read it. You do not have the right to dictate whether others are allowed or not allowed to read those books. We saw how limits on information worked in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Is that the path we want to go down in “the land of the free”?

As for Gene McGee, I hope the library smacks him down. I hope it throws every legal remedy at him until he realizes he can’t purge knowledge without consequences. Finally, I hope they grab several dozen of their books, preferably the titles he finds “offensive,” and clobber him over the head with them—and I hope they make a satisfying thump.