The scene is as heartbreaking as it is infuriating, as a drag queen swishes his hips for the toddlers and little children who fill the library room, asking them, “Who wants to be a drag queen when they grow up?”
It is heartbreaking to think that some of these impressionable little ones will want to emulate this gay man’s perverse outfit and presentation. It is infuriating to think that the room was also filled with parents who joyfully brought their children to be exposed to this abuse in the name of diversity.
What on earth were they thinking?! How could this be innocent fun for them, no different than watching a clown perform at the circus?
But that’s just the beginning, and if not for my sharp-eyed producers, I would have missed it entirely.
Let me give you the relevant background.
Since 2004, I’ve been grieved over the spectacle of gyrating drag queens in tutus performing before little children at gay pride events. It was then, almost 20 years ago, that my friends came back from a pride event in Charlotte, North Carolina, with pictures documenting the perversion. How could one not be burdened after seeing this?
More recently, I’ve said that, if anything is a sign of America’s depravity it is our celebration of drag queens, especially in their outreach to children. So, all this was nothing new to me.
But while annotating a forthcoming book on how we can turn the cultural tide in the nation, I discovered that there was a children’s reader titled The Hips on a Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish. I ordered the book, which arrived over the weekend, and yes, it was as disturbing in its illustrated content as the title would suggest. (Remember: this was designed to be read to very little children who have the most basic vocabulary. Now “swish” is one of their must-learn words, and at an early age, they must be “groomed” – in the words of a drag queen himself – to embrace this twisted phenomenon.)
I decided to talk about all this on my Monday broadcast, August 14, referencing the book and contrasting it with the use of Bible-based curricula in public schools in the first centuries of America’s existence. I also asked my producers to find a video clip I had previously seen of the drag queen swishing his hips in the library packed with tiny children.
This is the clip featuring the scene I described at the beginning of this article, except that the video, posted by AP News, didn’t begin in the library. Instead, it began in the drag queen’s apartment as he shaved his beard, put glitter on his face, and donned his wig.
“But,” the news commentator covering the story observed, “instead of performing at a night club, the venue is the Brooklyn Public Library in Park Slope.” (Note that this took place in 2017. Isn’t it tragic that it took so many of us this long to wake up to what was happening? The reporter, apparently thinking this was all positive, ends with, “Engaging young minds through sights and sounds.”)
As I said, watching the video is both heartbreaking and infuriating. But what I failed to notice at the beginning of the video, which is filmed in the drag queen’s apartment, was a small plaque on the wall next to a cartoonish picture of Bette Midler.
The plaque read, “I AM a lezzie butch pervert girlfriend bulldagger sister dyke AND PROUD!”
So, this self-professed gay man, thrilled with the opportunity of influencing little hearts and minds, also celebrates this “pervert” expression of sexuality. (I’m simply using the language of the plaque, verbatim and in context.)
Yes, this is the man reading to your children.
In the words of gay drag queen Dylan Pontiff (in 2018), defending the drag queen story hour before a local city council,
“I’m here to let you know that this event is something that’s going to be very beautiful and for the children and the people that support it are going to realize that this is going to be the grooming of the next generation. We are trying to groom the next generation.”
Parents of America, please listen to these words.
Are you going to let your children be “groomed”? And shall we mention the sexually explicit acts performed by some of these drag queens, in the presence of (and, sometimes, with the participation of) little children? Or the drag queens who were found to be sex offenders with children? Some of these convicted child abusers even read to little kids in libraries.
Parents, are you listening?
Even Joe Rogan “has called drag shows ‘sexualized,’ suggesting they are not for children and compared them to ‘family-friendly strip shows.’” Well said.
But I do not want to end this article here.
Watching the video of the unnamed drag queen in Brooklyn (the Associated Press wanted to protect his identity) along with the video of Dylan Pontiff, my heart also breaks for these men.
Yes, what they are doing is despicable and deplorable. Every city and state should ban these reading hours, making them illegal. And these men will be accountable for every young life they negatively impact.
Jesus had very strong words to say about those who harm the little ones (see Matthew 18:6-7).
Yet, to repeat, I feel genuine pain and sorrow for these men, for whom same-sex attractions likely feel just as natural as opposite-sex attractions feel for heterosexuals, and for in whose eyes reading to children is a good thing.
They are lost in sin, as all of us were at one time or another (see Ephesians 2:1-3). They are objects of Christ’s love, people for whom He died.
And some of them might one day be shining examples of God’s grace.
So along with that feeling of intense righteous indignation let a sense of pity arise as well. Pray for the salvation and transformation of the drag queens! Perhaps your prayers will make an eternal difference in some of their lives.