Last week, a not-so family-friendly drag show event at a Dallas nightclub showed a drag queen dancing around young kids provocatively. Believe it or not, a huge neon sign in the background read “it’s not gonna lick itself.”
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and it certainly won’t be the last if the far left has its way.
Last month, Democratic New York Rep. Caroline Maloney pushed “drag queen story hour,” calling it part of “a well rounded education.” Even at the library at the Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany – where kids with parents serving overseas go for books and educational events – there had been a planned “Drag Queen Storytime” before it was cancelled. Last year’s event had advertised the controversial book “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.” Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio hit the nail on the head when he called the planned event a “gross abuse of taxpayer funding to place children in a sexualized environment.”
Of course, it goes without saying that we live in a free country where Americans can attend whatever events they want and parents can raise their children as they choose. But I also think we should ask ourselves as a society why our children are increasingly being exposed to sexual content like this. You’d find fairly quickly it’s one political party perpetrating the divisive nonsense – and it’s most definitely not Republicans.
Over the past two years, Democrats have waged the far left’s culture war on many fronts. We’ve seen it in critical race theory, attacks on girls’ sports, and now, increasingly, woke gender ideology that is often sexually explicit. They’ve tried to infuse it into curriculums and classrooms alongside some of the most powerful forces for children’s education.
It was just a few months ago that a top Disney executive was exposed for saying that she pushes “queerness” in children’s movies. At the time of the Disney debacle, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had passed a bill to stop the teaching of gender ideology and sexuality to young children in schools. On cue, the left was up in arms. They deceptively called it the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” – trying to make it something it’s not. Even a majority of Florida Democrat primary voters support DeSantis’ bill. Yet the Biden administration doubled down, saying teachers should talk about if a young student is a boy or a girl. It’s really quite simple — if a kid asks, the teacher says: “ask your parents when you get home.”
Even worse, the Biden administration is trying to enshrine its radical ideology in schools through federal law, contrary to the wishes of parents. The Biden Education Department wants to expand its definition of “sex” to include “gender identity” – even though nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose it. Additionally, the Biden Agriculture Department will require K-12 schools to comply with its “gender identity” agenda or else risk not receiving funds for school lunches.
This iron fist approach to codify woke ideology in education is corrosive and deeply disturbing. But it’s also unsurprising, considering that Kamala Harris let slip that Democrats think of our children as “children of the community.” News flash – no, our kids don’t belong to the community. As a father of three, that’s insulting.
Together, it’s part of an insane “all of the above approach” the left is taking to destroy the next generation. The Biden Department of Health and Human Services has even put out guidance promoting sex change surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy in children. This is a horrible thing to do to a child. People aren’t even considering the irreversible long-term consequences – both mentally and physically.
Republicans support parental rights, and I’d venture to suggest that they won’t stand for the absolute lunacy Democrats and the Biden administration continue to push onto our kids. The full-fledged infiltration of radical gender ideology into our schools, culture, and society is not something I thought I’d ever see – but here we are. It’s absolutely worth fighting against.
Tommy Hicks Jr. is the co-chair of the Republican National Committee.