The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging the Waupun Public Library Board to resist religious pushback against its Pride Month display honoring the LGBTQ-plus community.
In a letter sent today, FFRF expresses strong support for the library’s decision to highlight Pride Month and is calling on the board to uphold a neutral and inclusive display policy that serves the entire community.
The letter was prompted by reports that a local pastor, Forsell Gappa, had launched a crusade against the Waupun Public Library’s decision to create a Pride display for Pride Month celebrating the LGBTQ-plus community. Gappa and others recently attended a library board meeting to protest the display, using inflammatory religious language to disparage LGBTQ-plus people for committing “sin.” Gappa claimed that “each letter in the LGBTQ acronym represents wrongdoing” while another attendee labeled the library a “grooming factory.”
FFRF strongly condemns these remarks and warns against allowing religious pressure to dictate public policy.
FFRF’s legal counsel Chris Line notes, “Calls to remove Pride materials are a form of viewpoint discrimination, often grounded in religious ideology. That’s not just unconstitutional — it’s also deeply harmful to LGBTQ-plus youth and families.”
FFRF has increasingly been forced to speak out as public libraries across the country face religiously driven campaigns to suppress information and silence marginalized voices. This is part of a larger movement to impose religious dogma in public spaces — and libraries are on the front lines.
In a statement last year marking Banned Books Week, FFRF warned that censorship is back with a vengeance, driven largely by religious and political ideologies targeting LGBTQ-plus themes and authors.
FFRF sees the Waupun controversy as yet another manifestation of this growing threat to free thought and secular governance.
“Public institutions like libraries must serve everyone and remain free from religious bias,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The library’s mission is to foster access to ideas and information — not to impose religious dogma or give in to those who wish to marginalize vulnerable communities.”
FFRF is urging the board to reject demands for censorship and to reaffirm its commitment to serving the full diversity of the Waupun community.
“There’s no true freedom of thought, conscience, or even religion,” the letter concludes, “unless our public institutions — schools, libraries, and local governments — are free from religious control over ideas.”
FFRF is a national nonprofit organization headquartered in Wisconsin with more than 42,000 members across the country, including over 1,800 members in Wisconsin. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
