Video - Anti-drag queen hysteria comes to SC's Myrtle Beach

 

I guess this video is way of saying that the anti-drag queen hysteria sweeping other parts of the country will be coming to South Carolina. It's exasperating to contemplate but there are a lot of things to consider which keep me from being fearful.

For one thing as annoying as the very small number of protestors in the video were, I found their candor refreshing. They basically were saying that they felt drag in itself was lewd and laws should supposedly protect kids from seeing it. When folks have pushed for bans against drag performances in the past, it's after they've riled folks up with anecdotal (and mostly taken out of context or outright lying) social media videos and stories which falsely depict drag queens as 'groomers.'

For another, whatever may happen will be coming on the heels of several victories in which courts have ruled that banning drag under the pretext of "protecting kids from seeing lewd acts" is not legal. 

There are already laws on the books which speak about public obscenity and lewdness. Automatically designating drag as obscene ergo "not for kids" based solely upon one's personal opinion simply does not meet the metric. 

For every anecdotal video and stories put out on social media designed rile up the base, there are many more videos and stories about clean drag shows and drag queens wearing more clothing than nuns while doing perfectly innocent things like reading to children or performing the same routines one would see cheerleaders do at sporting events.

Bottom line - if you don't want your kids to see drag queens or drag shows, don't take them to see any. You have that right as a parent or a so-called defender of children. But you don't have the right to deem via legislation based upon your own opinion (even with the help of trumped-up evidence) that drag in itself is lewd and obscene.  Especially because that belief is simply is not true. You don't get to create artificial standards of civility and decorum which you then attempt to force others to live by.  

And creating laws for this goal isn't protecting children. It's basic tyranny. 

Editor's note - I must commend the folks in the video who defended Pride in the Park. In the face of the hysteria, they spoke their minds with a simplicity and sincerity which cut through the nonsense. And they are right. In the end, it's all about love and community.

Related posts:

Far right activists don't know the difference between a circus act and a drag show

Taken out-of-context video fuels ugly lie about drag queens 'grooming' children

Drag performer sues far-right blogger alleging defamation over edited video 

BUSTED! Far right caught spreading false story that a drag queen exposed self to children 

Candace Owens can't even tell a good lie. Far right personality busted using fake photo of 'drag queen' 

Babylon Bee editor Seth Dillon caught spreading false story about a child tipping a half naked drag queen 

Silly conservative 'activist' doesn't know the difference between drag queens, drag kings, and strippers

Anti-LGBTQ group the Alliance Defending Freedom 'manufactured' lawsuits it took to the Supreme Court

Editor's note - I was going to post this on Friday, but the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein made me decide to wait until Sunday. All attention should be paid to this because in my opinion, it is one of the most substantial LGBTQ stories of the year. It also underscores the depths the anti-LGBTQ industry are willing to go to undermine our rights, safety, and health.

Anti-LGBTQ hate group the Alliance Defending Freedom has had much winning lawsuits in front the Supreme Court; lawsuits supposedly defending the rights of Christians against the LGBTQ community. However, according to a big expose by The Washington Post, the circumstances of these lawsuits were manufactured by the Alliance Defending Freedom. The goal seems to be bringing these lawsuits to court in the hopes of striking down laws and ordinances protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.

Before this summer’s landmark Supreme Court ruling that a Christian web designer in Colorado had the right to refuse to work on same-sex weddings, the legal advocacy group behind the case had spent nearly a decade laying the groundwork through similar lawsuits filed around the country. 

 Among the wedding vendors represented by the Christian nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom were a photographer from Kentucky, videographers from Minnesota and a pair of Arizona artists who created stationery. Each challenged local laws barring businesses from discriminating based on sexuality, which the plaintiffs said violated their First Amendment rights.

 In its petition asking the high court to hear the Colorado case, ADF cited favorable decisions it had won in those three cases. Winning meant its clients were free to express their beliefs about marriage through their work “without fear of government punishment,” ADF said in a statement after one ruling. 

 But an examination by The Washington Post of court filings, company records and other materials found that two of the three vendors cited in ADF’s September 2021 petition had stopped working on weddings, and the other did not photograph any weddings for two years. Three additional vendors represented by ADF in similar lawsuits elsewhere also abandoned or sharply cut back their work on weddings after they sued local authorities for the right to reject same-sex couples, The Post found. 

 Such developments led an opposing lawyer and a judge in two of the cases to separately question whether ADF’s plaintiffs truly intended to exercise the rights they sued for — or if their claims were instead manufactured to be test cases in a national litigation campaign.

 ADF also had a hand in formally establishing companies for some of its clients, The Post found. Lawyers associated with the legal group signed incorporation paperwork and helped to draft company policies that were later used as a basis for the wedding lawsuits. ADF promoted some of its lawsuits with videos and images of plaintiffs photographing women in bridal gowns at what The Post found were staged events featuring ADF employees.

You can read the entire article at the links I supplied which I am able to supply as a free gift (and not behind a paywall), thanks to a very good friend of mine. 

I don't know the legalities of all of this, so I really don't know if any laws were broken. But I do know that what the Alliance Defending Freedom is doing is unethical as hell. It's not right to fake a situation of discrimination and then build a case upon it, particularly when the end result means that a group of Americans could lose a legal protection.  Every victory the Alliance Defending Freedom has won with these lawsuits places a large, ugly stain on the American court system, particularly the Supreme Court. 

One wonders if certain justices (such as Alito and Thomas who are already facing issues with regarding their ethics) were in on these schemes. It's a question which needs to be asked. One of MANY questions for that matter.

Anti-LGBTQ mayoral candidate once encouraged husband to attend Pride event clad in Speedo

Franklin, Tenn alderman, mayoral candidate, and MAGA Republican Gabrielle Hanson this year tried to block a Pride festival because she felt it was dangerous to the innocence of children. She is also the same person who in 2008, according to her husband, encouraged him to attend a Pride festival in Chicago while clad in nothing but a tiny red, white and blue speedo.

News Channel 5 in Nashville has the story, including 'the receipts."

It's an image that goes against everything that Franklin alderman and mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson has claimed she believes — an image of her own husband wearing nothing but an American flag Speedo at a Pride event. And if her husband, Tom Hanson, can be believed, Gabrielle Hanson not only supported the decision, but pushed him to go through with it.

Hanson, a first-term alderman, bolstered her MAGA credentials earlier this year and launched a campaign for Franklin mayor after leading a bitter, but unsuccessful battle to block a Pride festival from being held at a city park. She claimed it was necessary to protect innocent children. Yet, NewsChannel 5 Investigates obtained a 2008 photo of Tom Hanson, wearing only the tiny red, white, and blue swimsuit in the middle of a downtown Chicago street during the city's annual Pride Parade. Other images depict scenes that Gabrielle Hanson has insisted should not be occurring in public, including flamboyantly attired drag queens. 

 When confronted with the picture during a board meeting where she successfully avoided a censure vote for ethics violations (having nothing to do with Pride), neither Hanson nor her husband had any comment.

News Channel 5 added the following:

Hanson is trying to unseat incumbent Mayor Ken Moore, lambasting her fellow Republican for casting the tie-breaking vote to allow the Franklin Pride event. She has been endorsed by a far-right political action committee that calls itself Williamson Families and cites her opposition to the LGBTQ+ event as one of the reasons for its support. 

 “Franklin deserves leaders that will courageously defend our state and federal constitutional rights, champion local business owners, protect the innocence of our children, practice transparent accountability and fiscal responsibility, and thoughtfully listen to residents rather than cater to radical left agendas," Williamson Families said.

And apparently, according to News Channel 5, the controversy about Pride is the latest in a string of interesting revelations about Hanson, including promoting prostitution.

'Florida school district orders purge of LGBTQ+ books from all libraries and classrooms' & other Wed midday news briefs

Florida school district orders purge of LGBTQ+ books from all libraries and classrooms​ - This is the desired end result for all of those "leave our children" alone fanatics and Moms for Liberty gangs. They don't actually want to protect kids. They want to erase LGBTQ people, our kids, and our families from the schools (and other places if they can get away with it.) 

Instagram has allowed Gays Against Groomers to spread harmful rhetoric about LGBTQ people - We haven't forgotten about this bigoted group or the entities who amplify them. 

QAnon Believer Threatens to Kill U.S. Congresswoman He Thought Was Transgender - Lawd hammercy!

As Muslims' status as political punching bag fades, some are fighting against LGBTQ+ acceptance - While this is not the entire Muslim community of America, it is still rather sad that some folks who were targeted by religious prejudice are turning on the LGBTQ community who stood by them. And using the same excuses of religious prejudice. I would tell them to be careful. As soon as they are no longer useful to the religious right, they will be betrayed.

Federal judge declares Texas anti-drag law unconstitutional. Various bigots have online meltdowns.

From The Texas Tribune:

Texas cannot enforce a new law that restricts some public drag shows, a federal judge said Tuesday in declaring the legislation unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge David Hittner found Senate Bill 12 “impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech.” The struck-down law prohibited any performers from dancing suggestively or wearing certain prosthetics in front of children. Hittner ruled that language discriminated based on viewpoint and is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. 

 . . . Critics of the bill, though, say that Republican lawmakers and officials this year have incorrectly — and unfairly — portrayed all drag performances as inherently sexual or obscene. While SB 12 was originally billed as legislation that would prevent children from seeing drag shows, the final version did not directly reference people dressing as the opposite gender. 

 However, Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, made it clear that drag shows were the bill’s target — comments and history that Hittner wrote “the court cannot ignore.” Last month, Hittner temporarily blocked SB 12 from taking effect on Sept. 1 after a two-day hearing for a lawsuit filed against the state by a drag queen and LGBTQ+ groups.

LGBTQ+ Texans, advocates, artists and business groups who sued the state, argued that the law discriminates against the content of performances and restricts equally protected free expression that is protected under the First and 14th Amendments. In Tuesday's 56-page ruling, Hittner noted a survey of court decisions "reveals little divergence from the opinion that drag performances are expressive content that is afforded First Amendment protection." 

 "Drag shows express a litany of emotions and purposes, from humor and pure entertainment to social commentary on gender roles," the ruling reads. "There is no doubt that at the bare minimum these performances are meant to be a form of art that is meant to entertain, alone this would warrant some level of First Amendment protection." Other states have passed similar legislation restricting drag performance, which have also been struck down by federal courts.

Basically, supporters of the bill claimed that they were merely trying to keep children from seeing sexually explicit performances.  However the bill defined drag performances as being sexually explicit, even if the drag queen is doing something as innocuous as reading to kids. 

Therein lies the rub so to speak. 

Texas will probably attempt to appeal the ruling, but this is still a tremendous victory. It sends a strong message to those who are constantly trying to undermine our lives in an effort to force us to live in accordance to their lurid prejudices. And speaking of those folks, they aren't happy. In fact, several of them have been busy raging on Twitter, accusing us (yet again) of "sexualizing children."

Poor babies. It's all they have.

 I actually like this one below. It's always good when the opposition gets so defeated that they put no effort in their lies. These are merely drag queens with kids. Nothing sexually explicit.

'Visibility matters! Bisexual elected officials and celebrities take centerstage' & other Mon midday news briefs

Celebrating Bisexual Elected Officials​ - A very informative list of folks

Bi visibility has been increasing in Hollywood — and beyond — in 2023! - Again, visibility matters.

Laura Ingraham, who thinks gay people are dangerous, runs to Russell Brand’s defense amid rape accusations - No comment to what I really think about Laura Ingraham. 

Conservatives are enraged at this adorable hotel ad featuring a lesbian couple - They like to stay mad, don't they?

Anti-LGBTQ, 'pro-family' Congressman Jeff Duncan's wife files for divorce while accusing him of multiple affairs

Anti-LGBTQ SC Congressman Jeff Duncan's wife has filed for a divorce while accusing him of multiple affairs.

Last year, South Carolina Congressman Jeff Duncan publicly accused the Democratic Party of trying to destroy families by "going after children." This year, Duncan's wife is filing for divorce while accusing him of having multiple affairs. It's a story as old as the hills and remade more times than the motion picture A Star is Born.

 From Business Insider:

A politician who promotes the importance of family has abandoned them. This time, it appears to be US Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican in South Carolina. Duncan's wife, Melody Duncan, filed for divorce last week, citing her husband's multiple affairs. Melody Duncan, his wife of more than 30 years and mother to his three sons, accused her husband of at least two affairs in the divorce filing, which was first obtained and published by the Index-Journal, a local newspaper in Greenwood.

 Duncan has been in office for 13 years and has long advocated for conservative Christian values. "As a life-long social conservative, I am a strong advocate for life and traditional family values," Duncan writes on his website. Accompanying the post is a stock image of the Holy Bible, a book famous for its views on infidelity. He then pledges himself to the anti-abortion cause: "The most basic component of our society is the family." 

 The family, plus a few mistresses, it would seem. 

 The divorce filing described Melody Duncan as a "dutiful wife" who "wholeheartedly supported" Duncan in his career. It cites a political event last month where Duncan echoed his wife's sentiment. At a "Faith and Freedom BBQ" on August 28, Duncan described his wife as "supportive and loving" while portraying himself as a "dedicated, dutiful husband," according to the divorce filing. Duncan then "left the next day and went directly" to the home of his mistress, it says. 

 Melody Duncan also says that her husband admitted his affair to their sons and congressional staffers, adding that she believes he has had at least one other affair.

This is the same Jeff Duncan who published a piece last year accusing Democrats of trying to destroy families and marriages:

Conservative policies are pro-child, pro-family, pro-parent, and most importantly, pro-life. Democrats, however, promote policies and ideologies that ultimately impair children in the long run, vilify concerned parents as “domestic terrorists,” and attack the most vulnerable. Conservatives believe that parents, not the government, should have the primary say in their child’s life and that a child’s rights must be protected first and foremost. For conservatives, when it comes to protecting children, that is the hill to die on.

The following is what he reportedly said about marriage equality in 2010:

I BELIEVE in family. I believe that children develop best when they have loving parents. I believe that marriage is sacred, and should only be defined as a union between one man and one woman I believe in protecting family values, and that is part of the reason why I am running for United States Congress.

And in 2015, he cosponsored a resolution to amend the Constitution to ban marriage equality.

So here we go again.  A 'pro-family' Congressman who makes a big deal about his morality and opposition to marriage equality has shown himself to be a huge hypocrite.  It happens so often that there simply is no shock value anymore. Worse than that, not only have we come to expect it, but we all have come to accept it. And with that acceptance comes the ability of hypocrites like Duncan to get away with it.