You are correct, and everyone is talking past you. The issue of funding the library is orthogonal to what the library then does with the funding. In the United

You are correct, and everyone is talking past you. The issue of funding the library is orthogonal to what the library then does with the funding. In the United States, government serves the People, not the other way around, and it's been this way since the US won independence. If the People in a specific legal incorporation do not wish to fund government, then they don't have to. The whys don't actually matter at all. The orthogonal issue is what people who are on the government payroll then do with their tax-money-based salaries. Being government employees, they are subject to the US Constitution and its views on right to free speech, religion, etc.