The Tampa Tribune reports:
Yoga, Pilates, opera, books and advocating for his beliefs are passions for Bart Birdsall, a first-time candidate seeking the District 2 Hillsborough School Board seat in south Tampa.
"I have a firm belief in what's right and what's wrong," said the 39-year-old media specialist at Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace....
Although this is his first political campaign, Birdsall drew media attention in 2005 for protesting the removal of a county library book display featuring gay authors and for displaying a sign proclaiming, "I'm a gay school librarian" at a gay pride rally.
After his initial protest, Birdsall was warned by a school district professional standards official not to post messages on a library message board using the district e-mail system. Believing his First Amendment rights had been violated during the whole protest experience, Birdsall read publicly from the books that had been removed from the libraries outside a meeting of county commissioners.
Bart Birdsall was honored as a 2006 Mover and Shaker by Library Journal in the article "Pride and Prejudice."
