MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) —Just days before Christmas, the Murfreesboro City Council quietly and unanimously voted to repeal the city’s decency ordinance.
“Nobody saw this coming,” said Keri Lambert. “There’s been no discussion of it. There’s been no word of it.”
Surprised is the emotion Lambert felt after seeing all this unfold at the Dec. 21 city council meeting.
“I find it very interesting that there was no discussion at all,” she said. “Why did they change their minds? These are the same people that put in place less than six months ago.”
Vice Mayor Bill Shacklett was the lone council member to voice concerns over the decency ordinance that later went into effect in July.
Since then the ordinance has had a large impact on the Rutherford County Library System.
Four books are now banned from library shelves, and a new library card policy will soon go into effect in January 2024 that will make it harder for minors to check out books not meant for their age group.
“I think it was a horrific ordinance and it terrified me,” said Lambert.
The Rutherford County Library Alliance was soon formed to fight against those book bans where Lambert now serves as vice president.
“By creating fear in people that they don’t grow the collection properly that’s censoring what information the public has access to,” she said.
A lawsuit also came from this ordinance after city officials worked to enforce it to stop BoroPride from happening in October, something a judge later halted.
“I think you have the ability to express yourself the way you want to express yourself, but I think whenever you have minors involve there is a different threshold,” Mayor Shane McFarland said back in June.
When News 2 spoke with McFarland then about the ordinance, he said it was meant to address gaps in existing city code.
“I know exactly what these sort of ordinances and laws…what they are designed to do, and they are designed to take away people’s rights and their freedoms,” said Lambert.
While Lambert is happy about the repeal, she worries what new ordinances the city could usher into the new year.
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“I think it is every American’s responsibility to stand up and fight for the constitution because if you don’t, who will,” she said.
It wasn’t discussed why at the Dec. 21 city council meeting why council members decided to repeal this ordinance.
News 2 reached out to city officials for a response, but have yet to hear back.
