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| Former TX lawmaker Bryan Slaton on May 4. A week before he resigned after sex scandal involving intern. |
This was Texas lawmaker Bryan Slaton in June of last year as he planned to propose legislation against minors attending drag shows, no matter how g-rated they would be:
“Children don’t need to be focused on sex and sexualization, and we need to let them just grow up to be children and let them do that as they’re getting closer to being an adult."
Much has happened between last year and now. Slaton did push anti-drag legislation. He also pushed for classifying gender-affirming healthcare for trans kids as child abuse. And all for the sake of protecting the innocence of children. To keep them from becoming 'sexualized, he claimed.
But Slaton was being a hypocrite and it caught with him on Monday. Apparently, he was doing some grooming of his own.
Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton, a far-right Republican who equated drag performers with “groomers” who sexualize children, resigned from office Monday after a state-led investigation found he engaged in a sexual relationship with his 19-year-old intern, plied her with alcohol and demanded her silence. Slaton, who is 45 and married, turned in his resignation, effective immediately, one day before the Texas House was set to vote on expelling him and two days after the House General Investigative Committee released an explosive 16-page report on Slaton’s behavior ― neither of which he mentioned in his letter of resignation to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
. . . According to the five-person committee’s report, Slaton invited his 19-year-old intern over to his home on March 31, and she arrived with two other young women working as legislative aides at the Capitol, along with one of their boyfriends. While there, the intern said, Slaton “kept refilling” her drink with rum to the point that she was “really dizzy” and had “split vision.” She declined to answer investigators’ questions about any sexual activity with Slaton, but according to the other women present that night, she later told them she’d “lost her virginity” to Slaton after the rest of the group left and described the encounter in great detail, saying she was “in love” with him. Days later, according to the probe’s findings, Slaton hinted to the intern that it would be a problem if their relationship got out. He then said that “everything would be fine” but that “everyone involved just has to stay quiet.”
And according to The Texas Tribune:
An unnamed representative who had learned of the allegations called Slaton to confront him, the report said. The representative asked if Slaton “invited a young staffer to your condo and you guys had sex,” to which Slaton responded “yes, that’s true,” but declined to answer further questions. In a later conversation on the House floor, the representative said Slaton asked him to keep the phone conversation “between us.” Instead, that lawmaker reported Slaton to the investigative committee, as did three other House members the report also did not identify.
No doubt, my LGBTQ brothers and sisters are probably yawning in that annoyingly "I've seen it before" desensitized tone which always hurts us in this so-called culture war.
Yes, you've seen in before because it happens so many times. The latest person who claimed that LGBTQ people and culture are a danger to kids was revealed as being as the true danger. Yet another person who implied that we are pedophiles or sex perverts just caught with his zipper down.
Every time - which is few and far between - the religious right finds even one of us remotely looking like we are doing something nefarious, they blast it everywhere, particularly on social media, until it becomes the narrative or prevailing story. What we do when inundated with the constant times that right-wing moral crusaders are caught boiling in their own pots of hypocrisy?
We wave it off instead of vigorously pointing out the hypocrisy. Then it's forgotten until the next time our opponents are caught doing the same thing. Then the cycle repeats itself. Our community is continuously being given weapons by the enemies of our equality, but we act too snobby to use them. We really need to do better. Start acting like fighters instead of targets.
Editor's note - For those interested, the Twitter hashtag #NotADragQueen and the address @antifaoperative keeps track of the many times those who calls us perverts end up being the perverts themselves. Folks should make it a point to follow them.
Photo of Slaton courtesy of Twitter - Texas Tribune reporter James Barragan.
