Only days after 19 children were gunned down inside a Texas school, a state lawmaker said Monday he will file a bill to ban drag shows in the presence of minors.
The move comes following this past weekend’s Drag The Kids To Pride at Mr. Misster, which was promoted as a “family-friendly” show and was picketed by protesters holding signs with messages like “Stop grooming the kids” and “Confuse a child, Abuse a child.”
Texas State Rep. Bryan Slaton said in a statement: “The events of his past weekend were horrifying and show a disturbing trend in which perverted adults are obsessed with sexualizing young children.”
Slaton vowed to continue to “defend kids from being subjected to drag shows and other inappropriate events.”
Mr. Misster staged the event to raise funds for a local LGBTQ+ youth organization. “We are more than happy to open our doors to celebrate Pride in a family friendly, safe environment,” read a statement from the club, “because we believe that everyone should have a space to be able to celebrate who they are.”
Drag is a performance art in which someone dresses as the opposite sex for entertainment purposes. It is often falsely conflated with the terms “cross dressing” (something done for personal reasons) or “transgender” (an individual’s gender identity).
Reactions to Slaton’s proposed bill came swiftly on social media.
“In texas kids are allowed to be brutally murdered in elementary school but not able to see a man in a wig lipsyncing to cher,” read one tweet.
Former U.S. presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wondered: “What are these people afraid of? Cher...? Donna Summer…?”
Thomas Lukaszuk, former deputy premier of Alberta, opined in a tweet that Republican lawmakers in Texas do not “mind kids getting shot in the head in school, but God forbid they see a drag queen.”
Another tweet read: “I don’t remember any drag queens murdering children with AR-15s in Texas but…”