New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended drag queen story hour Thursday on Twitter after a city councilwoman threatened to remove funding for any school that promoted what she called “degeneracy.”
“Drag storytellers, and the libraries and schools that support them, are advancing a love of diversity, personal expression, and literacy that is core to what our city embraces,” Mayor Adams wrote.
New York City has spent over $200,000 of taxpayer funds to the group Drag Queen Story Hour NYC, the New York Post reported Saturday.
Documents obtained by NYP showed that $157,000 of that money came from the city’s Departments of Education, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Community Development, and the Department of Transportation. $80,000 has been set aside for the group in the current fiscal year.
“I am considering pulling funding to any school in my district that is implementing Drag Queen Story Hour,” New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino told the NYP.
“We are taking hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the pockets of hardworking New York taxpayers … to fund a program teaching little children about their gender fluidity? Not. On. My. Watch.” she added.
Paladino doubled down on her comments Monday on Twitter.
“Any school in my district participating in ‘drag queen’ degeneracy risks losing their funding,” she wrote.
“The city’s got so many other issues so much bigger than drag queen story hour that I feel with the crime and the mental health issues and the homeless situation and the guns on the streets and the overall violence and how the city’s falling apart,” Paladino said in an interview with the Daily Caller. “To take so much time and focus off of the real issues in the city and concentrate on Vickie Paladino’s comment on drag queen story hour and how I don’t believe they belong in public schools, I think is a little, I think it’s stupid to be quite honest with you.”
I am quoted in this article, and I will reiterate: Any school in my district participating in ‘drag queen’ degeneracy risks losing their funding.
Adult drag performers have NO BUSINESS in our schools, and they will not be in my district. Period. https://t.co/rCKuvYNW0K
— Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) June 13, 2022
“Let’s concentrate on this city as a whole and get off the drag queen story hour. It’s nonsense. This city’s falling apart,” Paladino added.
“It’s not ‘hate speech’ to say drag queens don’t belong in schools. I make zero apologies for that,” Paladino said on Twitter Thursday.
She added that her office now requires a security detail due to threats of violence against her since her comments.
“At a time when our LGBTQ+ communities are under increased attack across this country, we must use our education system to educate,” Mayor Adams said on Twitter. “The goal is not only for our children to be academically smart, but also emotionally intelligent.”
Adams did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment in time for publication.