Media Matters for America reported last week that a right-wing commentator who is a frequent guest on the Fox News propaganda station said that authorities should take children from pro-LGBTQ parents. Candace Owens compared drag queen story hours to “child abuse,” saying parents who have no issue with drag performers “should have their children taken away.”
It’s not a one-off remark. Media Matters says that more right-wing voices are openly supporting this state kidnapping as part of an overall anti-LGBTQ strategy, as well as supporting the arrests of parents. “On The Faulkner Focus, Fox News Radio host Jimmy Failla claimed,’There was a time in this country of just a little more decency, where if someone even voiced the idea of taking your kid to a drag show, they would be arrested,’” Media Matters said.
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“Right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder claimed that progressives are opening the door to parents having their kids taken away if they don’t help the kids transition,” Media Matters continued. “’No one complained when you did it [Drag Queen Story Hour] at your private gay bars, no. But when it's at a public library with children, all of a sudden that’s where you get people I guess guilty of hate speech,’ he added.” Crowder has previously engaged in targeted homophobic (and racist) attacks, and in December was reported to be one strike away from a permanent YouTube ban after violating hate speech policy.
“Washington Times columnist Tim Young said parents taking their kids to drag shows ‘deserve no rights in this country’ and ‘at the very least’ should ‘be in jail,’” the report continued.
“Many right-wing outlets have called drag queen storytimes inappropriate or referred to them as indoctrination or sexualization of kids,” Media Matters said. Why could it be a major a mistake to ignore this hateful speech, or just dismiss it as noise from loudmouths? Because “[s]ome right-wing legislators are now echoing this rhetoric, claiming they will move to ban kids from attending drag performances,” the report continued.
As Daily Kos’ Hunter noted earlier this week, they are openly, shamelessly, and with bloodlust in their eyes “attempting to stoke fascist violence” against LGBTQ people for just existing.
“These various threats of violence follow a mass murder in Buffalo, New York, by a far-right terrorist who also ranted against ‘pedophiles and groomers’ targeting children—mirroring the precise new rhetoric promoted by Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures,” he continued. Last fall, top House Republican Elise Stefanik shamelessly pushed the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory promoted by white supremacist and Fox personality Tucker Carlson, and that was then touted by the Buffalo murderer. It’s not hard to see how this rhetoric could be deadly for LGBTQ communities.
Of course, Fox News and these personalities know exactly what they’re doing. That’s why rather than focusing on a hearing on the Jan. 6 coup attempt—a violent attack against the federal government that was physically carried out on the ground by white seditionists—the Fox News propaganda outlet spent more time attacking LGBTQ people. They’d rather attack asylum-seekers and undocumented children’s education and even migrant babies’ formula than the real danger facing our nation, which is the white extremists they’ve riled up.
“From 7 p.m. ET through midnight—covering the shows of Jesse Watters, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Greg Gutfeld—Fox aired just over 10 minutes of coverage of the hearing,” Media Matters said (emphasis by Media Matters). “By contrast, the network aired nearly 19 minutes of coverage of trans people and drag queens.” This is continues to head in an alarmingly terrifying direction.
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