The group that opposed and defeated Houston’s equal rights ordinance in 2015 announced Tuesday it is launching a petition drive aimed at prohibiting Drag Queen Storytime, the program shuttered earlier this year by city officials over reports that a participant was a registered sex offender.
Houston Public Library officials in March said they would seek to “improve upon policies” and “re-organize the program,” in which drag queens read books to children at the Freed-Montrose Library. A spokesperson for Mayor Sylvester Turner declined comment and did not respond to an inquiry about the status of the program.
The group Campaign for Houston seeks to amend the city charter to bar the program “or any variation thereof where a biological male dresses up in women’s clothing representing himself as a Drag Queen or a biological woman dresses up in male clothing representing herself as a Drag King.”
The proposed amendment also would prohibit “any content, programs or people related to adult sexually oriented business” from reading stories to children at Houston public libraries.
Jared Woodfill, a Campaign for Houston spokesperson, alleged the program is “targeting kids” and called it “out of step with the moral values” of Houston.
Just a reminder, Jared Woodfill also spends his time defending the honor of accused child molesters. But sure, it’s drag shows that are the problem. I have a hard time seeing this proposition as worded surviving a First Amendment challenge, and I’m also not sure if the intent is to put something on the May ballot or the next November ballot. A previous lawsuit alleging that Drag Queen Story Time had somehow violated people’s religious freedom was dismissed (in addition to a lack of standing) not having established any constitutional problems. I don’t doubt their ability to get the petition signatures, but how it proceeds from there is unclear. Deeply stupid, and unclear.
Lets see how many groups that advocate for the criminalization of being Gay get involved in this.
Putting it on the May ballot does little to hurt the Democrats in November.
Few people who are persuadable to vote Republican will change their vote over this.
I don’t understand why we give them a platform. I’m so sick of hearing their hate but they really use that to take apart our causes.
What’s this? Drag queen story time performers stripping for the kids? Yup. Nothing wrong here, nosiree. Promoters of this ADULT entertainment are grooming children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=397hRrQWa_c
Tom,
I’ve got nothing against you, or other adults like you. Live and let live, right? I support gay marriage specifically because the government needs to treat all its citizens equally. I think most Texans would agree with that.
Having said that, leave the kids out of it. Minors, especially young children don’t have the same rights and responsibilities as adults, and they also have special protections. There is absolutely no reason for very adult themes to be pushed onto impressionable kids, no reason for debauchery to be normalized to kids, other than grooming, and that would be wrong whether it was gays doing it, or hetero perverts doing it.
Have you ever considered why bars, strip clubs, and other adult only places have to have their windows covered? A: So kids aren’t exposed to what goes on inside.
If you want to read to kids, I support that. Just read to the kids, don’t expose them to adult themes. Kids reading to the puppies at the pound? Yes. You reading to the kids at the library in appropriate street clothes? Yes.
‘Drag queen story hour?’ No.
Jennifer:
When your cause is grooming kids, expect push back. You don’t have to be a conservative right winger to see this is wrong. And just as a reminder, you know who really defeated the HERO? It wasn’t suburban white conservatives, it was inner city black church goers. It was YOUR voting block that said “no, this is just a bridge too far.”
It wasn’t Trump voters that sunk the HERO, it was your own people that sunk it.
Tpm,
Who, specifically, in the United States, is calling for criminalization of being gay? Name names and cite sources. It sure isn’t the Trump administration, which is (LOL) extorting other countries around the world to stop criminalizing homosexual activity.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-launches-global-effort-end-criminalization-homosexuality-n973081
Weird how Obama didn’t waste HIS political capital on something like this. It took Trump to do it. How does that make you feel, that it’s the guy you passionately hate that is pushing your cause world wide?
Concerned Women supports criminalization. The Family Research Council is aligned with those who criminalize gay people thru the World Congress of Families. If you support or defend it ANYWHERE, its only a matter of time before they bring it here.
Regarding the Trump effort…it was laughable. Russia has allowed full on death camps for LGBT people to operate more or less openly in Southern Russia. Not only does Trump refuse to criticize Russia for those death camps and deadly pograms and specifically blocks asylum requests from people fleeing literal death camps and pogroms….the Russian violence is “justified” by a Woodfill style ‘protection of minors act’.
Either Gays have the right to free speech or they dont. Woodfill’s bill is nothing less than the complete abrogation of freedom of protest, petition, expression, and assembly for LGBT persons. This bill passes and theyll demand pride flags be made illegal, that gays should be barred from teaching kids or working in any job that has contact with kids. They lied about the scope of HERO, theyll lie here too.
All we are doing is adding fuel to their fire. I’ve been disappointed with Turner on how he’s handled this whole issue.
Tom, I am unclear whether this would be on the Nov. 2020 ballot along with President, or whether the City would instead use the May uniform date. I don’t recall Houston using the May date in past years, and usually smaller cities and school districts have used that date.
Tom,
Got links for any of that?
I’m also curious how a local bill by Woodfill, et al, would somehow supersede the US Constitution, which guarantees you (and me, too, by the way) the freedom to assemble, protest peacefully, express yourself and petition the government for redress of grievances. Also, I’m pretty sure a local ordinance can’t supersede your right to fly whatever flag you want to, or even to burn a flag, if that’s your particular kink.
The May ballots are used always by the side that benefits from low voter turnout. School districts in particular love this, because they can get their bond issues passed simply by having their employees vote, since virtually no one else will. Boom. Here’s your bond issue and associated higher taxes. I’m not sure how a low turnout would effect the Woodfill proposed legislation.
And this is straight (no pun intended) from Concerned Women of America’s website (never heard of them before, by the way):
GOALS
We are working to see:
FAMILY
1. The family esteemed as the bedrock institution of society consisting of individuals related by blood, marriage (the legal union of one man and one woman), birth, or adoption. The respect for the distinctiveness of men and women.
2. Society value and respect marriage, encourage sexual abstinence before marriage and educate on the dangers of promiscuous sexuality; HIV/AIDS treated as a public health epidemic and not as a civil rights issue.
3. An end to violence within households, especially the sexual abuse of children, while reinforcing the importance and autonomy of healthy families.
4. An end to drug and substance abuse and its normalization and legalization.
5. The elimination of gambling in all its forms.
I don’t see anywhere where they promote the criminalization of homosexuality. I see they disapprove of your lifestyle, as is their right as Americans, just as it’s your right to vehemently disagree with them.
Tom,
I looked at the World Congress of Families’ website and again, I don’t see anything promoting the criminalization or even the harassment of, gay people. Again, this is a group I have also never heard of.
How is it Open Societies and Media Matters are household names, but the groups you mentioned I had to look up?
Concerned Women support criminalization. Have for years.
The WCF is the clearing house for coordination between groups that advocate discrimination and abuse of LGBT people. Some of these groups even support Iran at the UN when they seek to escape condemnation for killing gay people. The FRC spent tens of thousands to help Uganda escape punishment for extreme abuses of its LGBT population.
Again, Woodfills proposal is supposedly unconstitutional.
It involves nothing less than an attempt to ban all pro LGBT speech anywhere in public, using the risible and insulting excuse that kids can see that speech. As well as the hateful premise that pro LGBT speech is filthy.
But The Texas Supreme Court is garbage and will not stop any abuse of LGBT persons, because thats what they do. As a result, the fact that a ballot proposition banning freedom of speech, petition, protest, expression, and assembly for LGBT persons is de facto constitutional because the Texas Supreme Court wouldnt stop any abuse of LGBT people.
And the discrimination advocates lied about his scope plan for HERO last time.
Here is the EXACT verbiage of the proposal:
The City of Houston shall prohibit the Houston Public Library, the Houston Public Library System and its neighborhood branch libraries from hosting, holding or promoting Drag Queen Story Time, Drag Queen Story Hour, Drag King Story Hour, Drag Prince Story Hour, Drag Princesses Story Hour or any variation thereof where a biological male dresses up in women’s clothing representing himself as a Drag Queen or a biological women dresses up in male clothing representing herself as a Drag King to read stories to children in Houston Public libraries.
And here’s the EXACT language of the petition:
The Houston Public Library system, as reported by KHOU Channel 11 News, has initiated the Drag Queen Storytime program in local libraries.
This program has been developed by the LGBTQ political movement with the intention of indoctrinating children. The drag queen said on camera that he wanted to “break the stigma of drag and queer culture with kids.”
The purpose for this is, of course, to normalize this perverted behavior, so that these children can be more easily recruited into their lifestyle.
Exposing children to this bizarre sexual behavior is a form of pedophilia.
I (we), the undersigned, call upon the Houston City Council to instruct the Houston Public Library system to immediately eliminate the Drag Queen Storytime program.
Tom, you have to admit that the whole “drag queen story hour” isn’t organic….it’s a coordinated strategy to move the Overton Window, specifically about what is appropriate for young kids to be exposed to. One thing about the CH11 video I found interesting is, the interviews with the white women who brought their kids to see the drag queen. I got to see exactly what Lizzie Fletcher voters look like.
Again, I’ve got no truck with what consenting adults do in private. I’m glad you can or did get married so you or your spouse can collect Social Security survivor benefits when the time comes. We diverge when it comes to kids, and exposing kids to adult themes.
If there was a bikini show at the Men’s Club specifically for young children, I’d be equally opposed to that, too. Kids need to be protected from this kind of thing.
Right, Bill Daniels really cares about kids. Heres a quote from him from January where he wants to “waste” children :
“ I have a solution where NO wall is built. Every 1,320 feet, we put a put up a fortified pillbox with two men. That’s 8 soldiers per mile, so roughly 16,000 to crew one shift, making it 3 shifts puts the total number at 48,000. We already have large bases near the border anyway, like Ft. Bliss, so manpower is close by.
Have the demarcation line of the border very clearly marked , have another line 50 feet into the interior of the US clearly marked, and give orders for the soldiers to shoot to kill any person entering the kill zone from the Mexican side, period. Women? Children? Old people? Military age males? Waste anyone that crosses from Mexico into the US. Back that up with predator drones . and perhaps an A-10 every 3 or 4 hundred miles, for close air support for larger groups, and you’ve secured the border, with no fences.”
I used to enjoy watching Flip Wilson but he was not the only one that crossed dressed to entertain.
Where were all the fake Christians when men dressed as women to entertain?
https://www.listsworld.com/30-famous-actors-dressed-in-drag/
Bill does not care about children or minorities, he is a paid troll or someone with too much time and hate.
If you’re homophobic or have some aversion/any aversion to the traits or part time escapades exhibited by the person the library has hired/asked to read children’s books to the kids, then don’t drop your kids off at the Montrose library come story time. It is literally as simple as that.
I find it extremely difficult to believe youngsters who live in this neighborhood are confused about Drag Queens.
And FFS, Houston Public Library, pre-screen the folks who are interested in this job.
Bill, what does Houston’s reading program have to do with a teen pride event in Washington? Do you have evidence that the reading program for very young children involved “Drag queen story time performers stripping for the kids?”, because even the thumpers have not claimed that as far as I am aware. The program always included a multitude of parents present even if it excluded creepy old weirdos who wanted to check it out without any kids of his own.
Why shouldn’t parents have the right to allow their kids to enjoy such a program, one filled with volunteers and involving minimal costs (if any)? Are you that against free choice? The only glitch in the program was that someone missed doing a background check on one of the performers, and we never heard if that person was held accountable, but at no time in the history of the program were the small children alone with one of the readers
What is the clown show? The drag queen story time or the opposition to it? Or both? I’m not sure that drag queen story time is the greatest thing for kids, but, on the other hand, I doubt that a child will decide to question their gender after going to a drag queen story time. And it could perhaps be of benefit, in that kids will learn that people perceived as “different” or “strange” are actually”normal” and this may prevent bullying and ridicule of classmates who are transgender or gay.
@Steve: I don’t know if the library was doing background checks at the time. I volunteer with my dog at a library, and never had to do a background check until after the volunteer with a criminal record was discovered. In any case, as you say, the volunteers are not alone with the kids–they attend with parents or other adult caretakers, nor do the volunteers have any authority over the kids, the way that a teacher, clergy member, principal, or day care worker might.
Jason, due to the nature of the program, they probably decided to scrutinize volunteers more closely, one of the articles on the program claimed HPD did the checks. I don’t think library personnel would have access to criminal records to do such checks so that makes sense to me. Otherwise, rather than Bill’s belief that the program was for recruitment, I saw it as an outreach program much like you say, to show people that the volunteers are not evil, child snatching demons like some religious nuts appear to believe. If it helps people get along better, it doesn’t sound half bad to me because the reality is that there are a lot of alternative lifestyle people out there no matter what the thumpers want.