Drag Queen Shows Latest GOP Political Focus
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to prosecute parents who take children to Drag Queen shows. Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott insists that counseling young people on transgender issues is child abuse. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wants to halt federal funding for any school that intentionally confuses children about gender/sexuality. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., says that Americans should be required to be 21 or older before they can declare sexual orientation or gender identity.
“We require people to be 21 to purchase alcohol beverages, and 21 to purchase tobacco products. Why is it so unreasonable to require people to reach a certain level of maturity before making life-altering decisions about their sexuality and identity?” Boebert said.
It’s so comforting to know that Republican leaders like DeSantis, Abbott, Boebert and Greene are watching out for our children as they and other GOP leaders maintain their role as gatekeepers for morality.
Republican candidates are tripping over each other as they try to one up each other for the crown of “Anti Trans” candidate while the GOP continues enacting hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ laws in its ongoing crusade to return the U.S. to the cruel, old days of homophobia. Alabama’s Republican primary for governor saw 11 anti-transgender ads, more than any other state.
The American Civil Liberties Union and LGBTQ advocacy group Freedom for All Americans reported that nearly 670 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed since 2018, with a record of 238 bills filed this year, so far.
The attack on the “woke” Democratic Party by politicians from Florida to Texas criminalizes teachers who discuss gender issues and says that members of the LGBTQ+ community are pedophiles who are “grooming” children, a phrase that refers to abusers who sexualize, manipulate and coerce minors.
The rhetoric from the right is reaching a boiling point and it is no surprise that the crusade is getting increasingly violent.
Among recent incidents, last month, the pastor of a small Boise Baptist church, which prohibits gay members, told his congregation that God wants to “put all queers to death.”
“When they die, that stops the pedophilia,” said pastor Joe Jones of Shield of Faith Baptist Church.
The “Drag Queen Story Hour” has recently come under attack by LGBTQ+ opponents. The story hour was created in 2015 as a children’s event that is offered in libraries across the nation with the goals to “inspire a love of reading, while teaching deeper lessons on diversity, self-love and an appreciation of others.”
The Daily Wire’s popular far right commentator Candace Owens raged on her show that parents should lose custody if they take children to a “Drag Queen Story Hour.” Members of the far-right Proud Boys disrupted a “Drag Queen Story Hour” at the San Lorenzo (Calif.) Library. One of the Proud Boys at the scene wore a T-shirt displaying an image of an assault rifle alongside the phrase, “Kill your local pedophile.”
A group of men with ties to the white nationalist Patriot Front was arrested after police stopped their U-Haul truck near a “Pride in the Park” event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. A Patriot Front video quotes one member, “For those who destroy our nation, we will destroy your symbols and all that you worship, to think that we will lay down and perish, you are greatly mistaken. Burn ‘em.” A nearby group of people armed with assault rifles and covering their faces, displayed a banner reading, “Groomers are not welcome in Idaho.”
The president of GLAAD, a non-profit that monitors negative coverage of gay and lesbian people, blamed conservative campaign rhetoric and legislation for the presence of far-right agitators at the Pride Month event in Idaho.
“Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and the nearly 250 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year are responsible for this dangerous climate,” President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.
Homophobia is as old as the Bible and dozens of hate groups across the country continue to spew their hateful beliefs but right wing rhetoric on social networking sites like TikTok is breathing new life into people and groups who want to return to the days when gays were prosecuted and persecuted and worse.
Pride flags have been vandalized in Idaho and a Catholic bishop in Massachusetts ordered that The Nativity School of Worcester can no longer describe itself as Catholic after its officials refused to take down Black Lives Matter and Gay Pride flags. Bishop Robert J. McManus said the flags gave a “mixed, confusing and scandalous” messages about the church’s stance on moral and social issues.
In Jacksonville, Fla., several people associated with the local, neo-Nazi group, NatSoc Florida, demonstrated outside of a Hamburger Mary’s restaurant, wearing shirts with swastikas and holding signs reading, “Child groomers work here,” “Fags groom kids” and “Judaism allows child rape.”
Proud Boys also joined a protest organized by the far-right anti-LGBTQ+ group, “Protect Texas Kids,” at a Disney Drag Brunch event in Arlington, Texas. Proud Boys members verbally confronted one person, yelling anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and calling him a pedophile. “Protect Texas Kids” says on its website that it is “here to take a stand in protecting kids from the toxic, indoctrinating agenda of the left by exposing the truth behind the ongoing assault that has been ruthlessly waged against our children’s identities, core development, and traditional values.
“The leftist machine has come for your children. It is time to understand what is going on, and counter them by empowering parents, and the community at-large, to challenge these ideologies everywhere they are found,” website says.
A Georgia Youth Justice Coalition Pride event scheduled for June 12 was canceled due to “a credible death threat” made by “an anonymous individual targeting the rally’s location, time, and date,” according to a statement from event organizers. On June 13, individuals associated with the white supremacist group, “White Lives Matter New Jersey,” protested another drag event during Mahwah’s Pride celebration, with one individual displaying a sign reading, “Hands off kids.”
On May 7, members of the Klan-affiliated white supremacist group, Aryan Freedom Network (AFN), held an “anti-grooming” protest in Austin, Texas.
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists notable anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups including Abiding Truth Ministries, Alamo Christian Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association, American Vision, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Atlah Worldwide Church, Center for Family and Human Rights, Chalcedon Foundation, Dove World Outreach Center, Faithful Word Baptist Church, Family Research Council, Family Research Institute, Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment, Illinois Family Institute, Liberty Counsel, MassResistance, Mission: America, Pacific Justice Institute, Parents Action League, Public Advocate of the United States, SaveCalifornia.com, Stedfast Baptist Church, Traditional Values Coalition, United Families International, Westboro Baptist Church, World Congress of Families and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International.
Thousands of members the Texas Republican Party met last weekend and adopted a resolution demonizing and damning homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice,” claiming that transgender people suffer from “a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition” and proclaiming that sexual reassignment surgery is a form of medical malpractice. The party also locked out from the convention the Log Cabin Republicans, a longstanding group representing gay Republicans.
The Anti Defamation League Center on Extremism has tracked a spike in extremist activity around Pride celebrations nationwide, fueled in part by the claim that members of the LGBTQ+ community are pedophiles who are “grooming” children. The messaging and announcements of anti-gay protests have been especially spread by Libs of TikTok, an anti-LGBTQ+ Twitter account with more than 648,000 Twitter followers which has been featured in the New York Post, the Federalist, the Post Millennial and is available on YouTube and right wing sites, Rumble, Gab, and Gettr.
On March 8, Libs of TikTok host Chaya Raichik, a Brooklyn real estate saleswoman, posted a video of a woman teaching sex education to children in Kentucky, calling the woman in the video a “predator.” The next evening, the same clip was featured on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program, prompting Ingraham to ask, “When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?” Libs of TikTok was soon featured by Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other right wing media.
The Republican assault didn’t deter millions of people from celebrating National Pride Month in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Major corporations also showed support of the community, including the Disney company, which was targeted by Florida’s governor for promoting gay issues. Disney’s recently released its newest movie, “Lightyear,” which was banned or censored by several countries for showing two lesbian characters kissing. On Monday, the agency in control of media censorship in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Twitter that “Lightyear” violated the country’s media content standards, and is not licensed for public screening. Film censorship agencies in Malaysia and Indonesia also flagged the movie for review and in Singapore, the film has been approved only for audiences over 16 years of age.
Disney came under intense pressure from Gov. DeSantis, for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” Law, which prohibits teachers from discussing sexual gender issues. LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar said that Disney has to be stronger in its opposition to the Florida law and other similar laws.
“If Disney is true in its values, it will take a decisive public stand against the discriminatory legislation occurring in Florida and offer tangible support for the LGBTQIA+ communities affected by bigoted legislation sweeping the country,” said a statement from the employees. “Stand against this bill in Florida and against the similar bills in South Carolina, Arizona, Virginia, and Tennessee. Stand against the transphobic legislation in Texas, Iowa, Utah, Kansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, and Alabama. Many hateful groups are attempting to eradicate us through legislation — we need you to stand with us entirely, not in empty words.”
And major fast food chains marketed special Pride items on their menus, although they were not all well-received by the LGBTQ+ community.
The food delivery service Postmates debuted its ad campaign for Pride Month, with a “bottom-friendly” food menu featuring items suggesting taking the bottom position during gay sex. A commercial for the menu depicted a harness-clad eggplant, a common metaphor for a penis, as a “top” and a peach wearing jockstrap underwear as a “bottom.” In response to criticisms, Postmaste said in a statement that the ad is “destigmatizing” gay sex.
Burger King, Dr Pepper and toilet paper brand Cottonelle ran ads with oblique references to anal sex.
Burger King debuted a “Pride Whopper” in its Austrian stores with “two equal buns,” giving consumers the option to buy burgers with either two top buns or two bottom buns. The ad went viral on gay Twitter and Burger King was accused of pandering to the LGBTQ+ community. The agency that created the ad, Jung von Matt Donau, issued an apology last week, acknowledging that it didn’t consult with LGBTQ people “well enough” before releasing the ad.