Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994                   TAG: 9406150025
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

SUPERVISORS PETITIONED TO DENY LIBRARY MONEY UNTIL BOOK'S REMOVED

McNerlin presented a 958-name petition to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors calling for the denial of tax money to the Library Board until it agrees to remove the book, "Daddy's Roommate," from the children's sections of its three libraries.

Volunteers collected the signatures in one week by distributing the petition at churches, businesses and even softball games, McNerlin said. More names were still coming in on Tuesday, so the total will be even higher.

The Library Board voted 5-3 two months ago to keep the slim volume in the Easy Readers sections after the acting library director said she could find no criteria to justify setting up special collections to house "Daddy's Roommate."

The new library director, Karen W. Dillon, said last month she supports that decision.

The supervisors took no action on the request later Monday night when they formally appropriated the $70.6 million 1994-95 budget, which takes effect July 1. That amount, approved two months ago, includes the library system's $900,000 annual budget.

McNerlin started her campaign against the book in February after coming across it during a library visit with her young daughter. Though McNerlin bases her opposition to the book on legal grounds - because sodomy is illegal in Virginia - other opponents have decried its portrayal of homosexuality on moral grounds. She's been joined in speaking out by a representative of the Christian Coalition.

At the same time, other parents have spoken in favor of the book, saying it provides an important lesson about homosexual families. Moreover, they've said it's up to parents to regulate what their children read, not librarians.

McNerlin gained one more supporter of her effort - Supervisor Joe Stewart - when she went into details of other books published by the same company that donated "Daddy's Roommate" to the Montgomery-Floyd Regional library system.

She described one book that depicts a lesbian mother having an affair with her teen-age daughter and another that offers tips for male pedophiles.

Though "Daddy's Roommate" portrays no sexual deviance - or any sex at all, for that matter - McNerlin said the donation of the book "tells me right there that there's some kind of an agenda."