Kiama votes to keep libraries free from 'intolerant' book bans

Kiama councillor Matt Brown has tabled a motion for Tuesday's council meeting supporting the town's libraries.

Earlier this month, Cumberland Council voted to ban same-sex parenting books from its libraries by a vote of 6-5.

It was a decision that was reversed two weeks later, following a public outcry and state and federal MPs speaking out against the move.

The vote to reverse the ban was emphatic - 12-2 with five councillors who had originally supported the book ban changing their vote. Several councillors were not present at the time of the original vote.

In his motion that goes before Tuesday night's meeting Cr Brown calls for council to support the town's libraries, encourage locals to use the facilities and "welcome Cumberland residents to visit Kiama so they can experience an open and loving community without divisive censorship".

Cr Brown said the inspiration for the motion was "to reaffirm the tolerance that the Kiama community has for all family types"

"Kids who have got same-sex partners will be reading stories like that and thinking, could the local council go down this route and start banning books and try and make them feel marginalised?

"I wanted to make it very clear that this community would not be going down that road."

Cr Brown said he was "outraged" when he heard of the Cumberland Council decision.

"I couldn't believe in modern Australia a group of elected officials think they can ban books in their local library, especially books that are trying to explain some more modern family structures such as same sex parenting," he said.

Cr Brown felt the response to the ban suggested the council was "out of step" with the wishes of its community and that the reversing showed "sanity prevailed".

"Though I'm concerned that there were a number of councillors and members of that community who still think it's acceptable to be forcing their intolerance through local officials on this matter," Cr Brown said.