If it feels like Pride Month has taken a different tenor this year, with the involvement of children in highly-sexualized events reaching a peak, it’s not just your imagination. Whereas at a Pride parade in the past you might have seen a handful of kids waving rainbow flags, this year, we’re seeing images floating across social media of the direct involvement of children in sexualized activities specifically marketed towards them.
Take this event out of Dallas, which the DailyMail reported on:
A pride-month event at a Dallas gay bar inviting children to take the stage alongside drag queens was met with outrage and encouragement alike over the weekend.
The event, titled ‘Drag The Kids To Pride,’ was held at the Mr. Misster gay nightclub in North Dallas on Saturday morning.
The event invited parents to bring their kids along for a morning drag show, and featured children dancing alongside men dressed in drag beneath a pink neon sign reading ‘It’s not gonna lick itself.’
It featured images like this,
A small child — perhaps 5 or 6 — stuffs money into the underwear of a nearly naked drag queen as parents look on, smiling. pic.twitter.com/oCcuABAGwz
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) June 6, 2022
Those defending the event in Dallas claimed that it was organized in order to expand the horizons of children towards other lifestyles. In reality, it’s part of a larger effort to rob children of their childhood innocence and turn them into woke foot soldiers.
In this reimagining of American culture, masculinity is itself toxic, and young boys are encouraged to suppress their natural biological instincts. Boys are encouraged to eschew traditional male gender traits, with the priority shifted to ensure they are instead exposed to gender “fluid” role models like drag queens.
Whereas popular culture (in the form of books and media) created for boys once featured cowboys, fighters, builders and Founders who embodied male traits, kids consuming more recent fare will never meet these characters.
In light of this situation, we decided to introduce to families a bundle of “Heroes of Liberty” books, written for children ages 6-12, that tell stories with positive messages about manhood and expose kids to the positive attributes of great men.
Take the story of John Wayne, one of the most famous cowboys in American popular culture. Wayne was the archetype of American masculinity, who never shot anyone in the back, and learned how to fight and be a man after kids laughed at him for having a girl name: Marion.
In an age where wallowing in self pity and victimhood is encouraged, we share with children the story of famed economist Thomas Sowell, who started out in extreme poverty and never asked for a favor. His story is a valuable lesson in self-reliance, one that kids aren’t taught in school, let alone in popular culture.
This month, we’re watching libraries and schools be taken over by adults hell-bent on evangelizing their sexual agenda at the expense of childhood innocence.
On Monday, Fox News reported:
A Texas state legislator announced his intention Monday to introduce a bill that would ban minors from attending drag shows in the state.
State Rep. Bryan Slaton, a Republican who represents a House district just east of Dallas, said in a press release that his proposed legislation comes after footage went viral over the weekend showing children attending a drag show at Mister Misster, a gay bar in North Dallas.
Most normal parents aren’t bringing their kids to these kinds of events. Parents make a million decisions per day that other people disagree with, and criminalizing questionable parenting decisions isn’t a road we should be walking down as a society.
For the rest of us, though, we should at least be able to shield our children from such events. We’re currently engaged in political brinkmanship over drag queen shows for kids. The Post Millennial reported on the latest,
In response to a Texas state representative announcing that he will file legislation to ban drag shows from having children in their audience, California state senator Scott Wiener proposed offering drag queen curriculum in schools.
Responding to a tweet from Rep. Bryan Slaton of Texas in which he announced the legislation, Wiener wrote, “This guy just gave me a bill idea: Offering Drag Queen 101 as part of the K-12 curriculum. Attending Drag Queen Story Time will satisfy the requirement.”
This is exactly why parents, not politicians, should be the ones determining what is appropriate content for their own children.
Parents need to be given the tools to take back their children’s hearts and minds. If we’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that schools and popular culture won’t be providing them with wholesome content.
That’s where “Heroes of Liberty” comes in; giving parents the tools to take back not just bedtime, but their children’s innocence and reassert for them what a hero is, and thus, who they should want to grow up to be.
Bethany Mandel is an editor at the children’s publishing house Heroes Of Liberty, which published John Wayne: Manhood and Honor.
