THE ISSUE
Lancaster County Commissioners Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino were rebuked Wednesday by county residents who contended that the two Republicans had ginned up outrage against a planned Drag Queen Story Hour with performer Christopher Paolini as Miss Amie Vanité at Lancaster Public Library on Saturday, March 23. That event had to be canceled after the discovery of a suspicious package that was later found to contain coloring books. But a subsequent email warned that bombs had been placed in the library and in the homes of Lissa Holland, the library’s executive director; Tiffany Shirley, president of Lancaster Pride, which had sponsored the story hour; an LNP | LancasterOnline reporter; as well as the LNP | LancasterOnline newsroom and the Starbucks at 101 N. Queen St. As LNP | LancasterOnline’s Tom Lisi reported, a few residents defended Parsons and D’Agostino and the GOP commissioners strenuously defended themselves and said they had simply voiced their opinions as elected officials.
Josh Parsons has a penchant for trolling, posting provocative comments to draw attention and pump up his right-wing political credentials.
He doesn’t have a particularly large social media audience: fewer than 1,750 followers on his two accounts on X (formerly Twitter) and 5,800 on his official Facebook page. Given that he’s just one of three commissioners in a county of more than 558,000 people, that’s not a very impressive level of social media engagement. So he takes stands that he must know will elicit coverage from news organizations.
Trolling is best ignored. But sometimes it has consequences that cannot be overlooked.
Exhibit A: Saturday, March 23, when what was supposed to be a fun, relatively small — and wholly voluntary — library event for children and families was abruptly canceled when K-9s, dogs trained to detect explosives, reacted to a package that had been delivered to the library.
Because of the furor fueled by Parsons’ and D’Agostino’s social media posts — a furor that included protests and a deluge of letters to the editor and calls to the library — city police conducted a security sweep of the library ahead of the story hour.
That package, thankfully, turned out to be benign, but then came the terrifying email, referring to the library event and containing bomb threats and malicious language.
Lancaster city’s beating heart was eerily stilled, as law enforcement officers, firefighters and other emergency responders searched for signs of suspicious activity and evacuated city streets and businesses. We thank the first responders for performing their duties efficiently and professionally. They didn’t know what they were facing and yet they rushed, as always, into the fray.
So, too, did the news journalists of LNP | LancasterOnline.
The toll
The emotional toll of March 23 will be felt for a long time, especially in the LGBTQ+ community. No one should be made to feel unwelcome and, worse, unsafe in their own county of residence.
There were other harmful effects, too.
As LNP | LancasterOnline’s Chad Umble reported Wednesday, the resulting turmoil forced downtown businesses “to miss out on tens of thousands of dollars in key sales during a busy, albeit rainy, early spring day in downtown Lancaster. ... With thousands of extra visitors in town for the Zenkaikon anime and sci-fi convention, Saturday was set to be a banner sales day.”
And then it wasn’t.
John Meeder, an owner of Holiday Inn and The Imperial Restaurant at 26 E. Chestnut St., told Umble that the restaurant had to be temporarily closed and 400 hotel guests were sent outside into the rain, including some Zenkaikon convention attendees who were participating in gaming tournaments.
“Zenkaikon is one of the first events of the year that fills the hotel and is needed after the slower winter months,” Meeder said. “We are hopeful that they can forget the fiasco that was thrust upon our community and book again next year.”
We hope so, too. Zenkaikon has become a delightful fixture on the city’s calendar, and it would be awful for city businesses and the local cultural scene if it didn’t return.
Meeder and Sam Wilsker, co-owner of the Holiday Inn and The Imperial Restaurant, were among those who attended Wednesday’s commissioners’ meeting to lambaste Parsons and D’Agostino.
“You’ve proven once again, in a very unfortunate way, that words matter,” Wilsker said. “You have a responsibility to all the citizens of Lancaster County, and your recent actions do not reflect this responsibility you were elected to (fulfill).”
Meeder noted that the Holiday Inn is a designated gathering place for county workers should the Lancaster County Government Center need to be evacuated.
“How ironic that your actions forced us to evacuate our hotel at the busiest time imaginable,” Meeder said. “We are not the only ones to suffer, but we’re just part of the collateral damage.”
The frenzy
As LNP | LancasterOnline’s Dan Nephin reported late last week, investigators “believe the contents of the threat originated from outside the United States.” As of Friday morning, the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office, the Lancaster city police and the FBI still were working to identify the perpetrator.
But this much was clear: In whipping up a frenzy over the planned Drag Queen Story Hour, Parsons and D’Agostino ensured that the library event would be under a white-hot spotlight.
Jeff Eberman of Manheim Township said at Wednesday’s meeting that Parsons had “weaponized” the event, and that both Parsons and D’Agostino wrongly depicted it as inappropriate for children, when Miss Amie’s message was about “love, courage and compassion.”
He urged the Republican commissioners to “take a deep and serious look” into their bias, and consider why they viewed a children’s story hour as “innately political, sexual or anything but an opportunity to come together around reading.”
The irony
Both Parsons and D’Agostino pushed back against accusations that their public comments played a role in the harrowing events of March 23.
Playing the victim, Parsons declared that he would not be “canceled” and he would not be “silenced.” He declared that attempting to silence speech is “Orwellian.”
The irony is thick.
Parsons: We’re being canceled.
Also Parsons: Cancel the Drag Queen Story Hour!
Parsons: Free speech!
Also Parsons: People are trying to silence me by criticizing me.
Parsons: Stop the gaslighting and lying about us!
Also Parsons: Pay no attention to our gaslighting and misrepresentation!
D’Agostino also struck a self-righteous, self-pitying tone in his response Wednesday: “To cast blame for the threats and ensuing issues that led to the cancellation of the event on Josh, myself or anyone else who peacefully expresses their opinion, is attacking the very freedoms that our country was founded upon.”
Keep that word “freedoms” in mind, commissioners, and please apply it to the members of the LBGTQ+ community and the families who planned to attend the story hour, and who want the liberty of making their own decisions about the books and cultural events their children can enjoy.
A voice of reason
And now let’s return to the issue of trolling for political gain.
Jason Burkholder, a Realtor and Lititz resident who said he voted for Parsons, D’Agostino and Democratic Commissioner Alice Yoder, decried the Republican commissioners’ use of performative outrage in the service of a partisan agenda.
“We expected our leaders (to) want the best interests of all of our residents to come first, not necessarily chase a spotlight and push very divisive and harmful rhetoric,” Burkholder said at Wednesday’s meeting.
He pointed out that “if our concerns are about protecting children, instead of fanning the flames of intolerance, we could be finding ways to fund our woefully understaffed, overworked and underpaid” county Children and Youth Social Service Agency.
And he ended with this plea, which we echo emphatically today: “Please stop using your office as a stage and use it to find solutions to the very real problems we actually face.”
