This is the article that appeared in the November 2022 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.
Bill Donohue
Throughout the Western world, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender movement is at a gallop pace. Men and women think they can change their sex and men are told they can get pregnant. It’s all a lie. Worse, many who believe this madness have set their eyes on children. Take, for example, Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH).
There are some parents and grandparents who think that DQSH is a fun-loving way for kids to appreciate diversity. What’s wrong with men dressed as women reading to kids in the local library?
Upon closer inspection, it becomes quite clear that these events were founded to promote an agenda, the goal of which is to normalize aberrant sexual behavior.
No place in the U.S. celebrates DQSH more than San Francisco. Here is what a writer for The Federalist had to say about this last year. “DQSH has brought not just one, not two, but at least three convicted sex criminals, two of whom are convicted pedophiles, into confined spaces with large numbers of young children on multiple occasions. Its events also have been sponsored by a man who’s been charged with seven counts of child pornography possession.”
DQSH was founded in San Francisco in 2015 by Michelle Tomasik, who goes by Michelle Tea. Though she has no academic credentials—she never even went to college—her standing in the lesbian community led to a post at Tulane University as a Writer-in-Residence.
Growing up in Chelsea, Massachusetts she recalled how her stepfather spied on her through a hole that he drilled in the wall; he never disputed the abuse. When her mother decided to stay with him nonetheless, she bolted and left for Boston with her female lover. After her girlfriend became a prostitute, she followed suit.
Then Tea “married” Dashiell Lippmann in 2013. It wasn’t a happy day. Following the ceremony, she aborted her five-month-old baby who had died within her (doctors mixed Dashiell’s eggs with donor sperm and implanted the embryo in Tea.) She tried to abort the baby before the wedding but was afraid of miscarrying “all over” her bridal gown. “I wanted this clot of cells taken out of me so I could go on with my life,” she said.
Why did Tea found DQSH? Gaytimes said it was to introduce kids to the “LGBTQ+ culture.” She could not do so without the backing of the American Library Association (ALA). Those who run it are 87% white and 81% female, and virtually all of them are on the left.
The ALA is responsible for the spread of DQSH throughout the country; local libraries pay gays to run the events. A blog post to the ALA a few years ago encouraged librarians to promote the LGBT agenda by “sneakily fit[ting] stuff in current programs.”
One of the most popular books stocked by libraries is The Gender Fairy. It is meant for infants. It tells them “only you know whether you are a boy or girl. No one can tell you.” That means parents, of course. Similarly, a teacher was caught on video telling her class, “It’s OK to be different. There is no such thing as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ things.” The students were first-graders.
What’s going on? Why have these librarians and teachers become activists for the LGBT cause? Lil Miss Hot Mess is one of the nation’s leading drag queen authors and activists promoting DQSH. She says she loves it when kids realize “that things aren’t necessarily the way they’ve always been told they have to be.” Again, a clear shot at parents. Who are they to tell their children what’s right and wrong?
L. Ron Hubby, a San Francisco drag queen, likes to sing to kids and tell stories. He says DQSH seeks to “capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity in childhood.” Not quite. It would be more truthful to say these programs are designed to plant the seeds of gender fluidity in children. A New York leader of DQSH also named “gender fluidity” as the number-one concept he seeks to instill in kids.
Another DQSH activist said she wants children to understand they don’t have to be a “cookie cutter kid,” meaning it is okay to rebel against the norms and expectations set by their parents. A psychology professor from the University of Kentucky echoed this saying, DQSH “ultimately provides children with a really flexible model of gender.” In other words, being a boy or a girl is interchangeable.
Kevin Roberts is president of The Heritage Foundation. He is concerned about our culture creating a “new generation of drag kids.” He’s right. This past summer a video emerged of a young girl gyrating to music at a drag show as adults tossed dollar bills at her. It got so bad at a Brooklyn gay bar a few years ago that a reporter who covered a drag event said, “I left after seeing a child dance on stage for money at nighttime.”
When a six-year-old boy saw a tall man dressed as a woman at a library drag event, he asked, “Are you a boy or a girl?” “Well,” he said, “I guess I was born a boy. But I like to dress like a girl.” The message sent was not hard to understand.
In July, after a topless drag queen at a Miami bar sought to entertain a girl—she was “between three and five years old”—the performer boasted, “Children belong at drag shows!!!! Children deserve to see fun & expression & freedom.” This is why another drag queen in Pennsylvania showed up shirtless teaching children how to spin on a stripper’s pole at a Pride Festival.
This is the face of freedom for drag queens—watching little kids be sexualized by perverts.
The sexual libertinism that is at the root of DQSH is, of course, notoriously anti-Catholic. The most famous drag queen of all, Ru Paul, likes to parade around in garb that mocks Catholics. Unsurprisingly, he calls his relationship with Georges LeBar an “open marriage,” explaining that he would not want to “put restraints” on the man he loves. That way both can cheat with abandon.
RuPaul’s fans at Slate reviewed his more famous gigs, saying of his of his assembly of queens, “you might have thought they were processing into a house of worship rather than a drag competition reality show set. Our Lady of Guadalupe embroidered tops, Sacred Heart of Jesus hats, cross appliques, rosary-adorned boots, and a crown of thorns were just some of the looks served.” RuPaul offered his customary closing, “Can I get an amen up in here?”
In August, I sent a letter to the president of Tennessee Tech University complaining about a drag queen performer dressed as a Franciscan friar who pranced on stage while children showered him with cash (the president took the matter seriously). The most common drag events that assault Catholic sensibilities are those put on by the San Francisco-based Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of homosexuals dressed as nuns.
They regularly hold DQSH events in urban libraries. Princeton professor Robert P. George, a member of the Catholic League’s board of advisors, knows what they are doing.
“It’s a message of power. The group in question, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, is sending a message that they have the power to enter into the public domain, a publicly funded institution, I believe, not a private one, and to essentially hold a catechism class for this new religion that they’ve created, a religion of hedonism, of self-indulgence….”
It does not speak well of corporate leaders and politicians, virtually all of whom are Democrats, that they back DQSH events. Target, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and Hewlett-Packard sponsor such fare, knowing that children are the key audience. Two San Francisco-based entities, the Zellerbach Family Foundation and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, do likewise.
Over the past summer, the Democratic Party hosted several DQSH events. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says her goal is to have “A drag queen for every school.” New York City funds DQSH performances, and its mayor, Eric Adams, justifies the spending saying that “literacy” is a “core to what our city embraces.” Note: the majority of students in grades 3-8 in New York City public schools are unable to read at grade level.
No one beats Scott Wiener, a California state senator who represents San Francisco. A homosexual radical, he is a strong advocate for DQSH. He is also known for sponsoring a bill that says adults who have oral and anal sex with minors should not be required to register as sex offenders.
There are those who worship at the altar of non-judgmentalism, tolerance and diversity who regard all critics of DQSH as a secular sacrilege. Their creed—and that is what it is—does not allow for criticism of any gay or transgender event short of violence. They should listen to what honest persons involved in DQSH have to say.
Drag queen Kitty Demure warned parents last year about taking their kids to such events.
“I have no idea why you want drag queens to read books to your children… What in the hell has a drag queen ever done to make you have so much respect for them and admire them so much? Other than put on makeup and jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage? I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child. Would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?”
Demure wasn’t finished with his reality check. “A drag queen performs in a nightclub for adults. There is a lot of filth that goes on, a lot of sexual stuff that goes on. And backstage there’s a lot of nudity, sex, and drugs… So I don’t think this is an avenue you would want your child to explore… But to actually get [your children] involved in drag is extremely, extremely irresponsible on your part.”
He also warned against taking kids to Pride events, saying “they don’t belong there. There’s a lot of adult activity that is going on at gay Pride events and in the nightclubs. And I think it’s just irresponsible—they’re all like that. Children should not be a part of this culture.”
Last year the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir sang a song with a message to parents.
“We’ll convert your children. It happens bit by bit. Quietly and subtly, and you will barely notice it. We’ll convert your children. Yes, we will. There’s really no escaping it. We’ll convert your children. We’re coming for them! We’re coming for your children! We’re coming for your children! We’ll convert your children!”
It would be so nice to think that these are just throw-away lines designed to pull the chain of uptight parents. And for some gays, that’s probably true. But for many others, this is exactly what they mean. Why would anyone in his right mind want to give the jokers the benefit of the doubt?
