Media Research Center writer Elise Erhard went on a drag queen-bashing tirade in an Oct. 9 post, in response to a health insurance company commercial that was “uplifting” until it showed “a drag queen reading and dancing for laughing children”:
For decades, the left has successfully promoted the increased sexualization of children by portraying opponents as somehow mean or intolerant. In this latest volley, those who see problems with a sexualized man dressed as a woman reading to children are once again criticized as just disliking people who are different or “too much.” A drag queen reading to children is the same as an elderly woman who dresses her best or a male healthcare worker showing a softer side, in a new commercial by health insurance provider Kaiser Permanente.
[…]With the help of the American Library Association, drag queen story hours have been invading local communities, often against the communities’ wishes. Children at these story hours have been exposed to convicted pedophiles, taught twerking, and placed in sexually suggestive positions with drag queens for photo-ops. One drag queen who participated in a story hour even admitted in front of his local city council that it was a form of “grooming.”
This is corporate advertising once again soft-pedaling a radical left-wing sexual agenda by integrating it into what seem to be benign, everyday advertisements. Kaiser Permanente has a long history of contributing to liberal causes, like GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, and National Urban League.
To all those parents and taxpayers who are fighting this latest insidious form of child sexualization, Kaiser Permanente literally says, “Too bad.” Apparently, the health insurance company thinks sexually grooming children is just another way for adults to “thrive.”
Erhard’s “grooming” claim falsely suggests that drag queens are preparing children to be sexually exploited. In fact, that comment is taken out of context; the man who performs as a drag queen said at a Louisiana city council meeting in 2018 that he’s “not there to push any kind of agenda”:
I was told at the library council meeting last night that I am pushing the trans agenda, I am pushing an overly sexualized agenda, and that is furthest from the truth. I am just as talented as a singer or a dancer or anyone that has aspecial talent. It’s just mine is dressing as a woman and entertaining a crowd.
Now, everywhere you can go, you can see that people can change their views for certain audiences. Just as much as someone can be an actor for an rated-R movie and they can go around and be in a G-rated movie, I can entertain adults in a club but also entertain a group of students and young children. I’m able to do that because I’m an adult and I know how to filter myself.
And I just think that it is implorable [sic] some of the opinions I’ve seen and some of the looks I’ve received here tonight. The eyes people give you whenever they think that you are the one that’s in support of this event is truly disgusting. And I am not here to obviously change anyone’s views about me, but I’m here to let you know that this event is something that’s going to be very beautiful and for the children and people who support it are going to realize that this is going to be the grooming of the next generation. We are trying to groom the next generation not to see the way that they just did.
And just because I said that, you heard the little ploor [sic] of people behind me. It’s disgusting. We’re trying to teach people to be tolerable, to be patient, to be loving. And the fact of the matter is that I’m standing right here and there’s probably 50 people behind me looking at me with daggers probably wishing I would probably die in a car wreck whenever I leave here. It’s truly implorable [sic].
And that is what we’re trying to do with drag queen story time. We’re trying to raise people to be loving and caring individuals, and I really hope that this event is going to do that for not only just the children at this event but children in the future.
So, quite a bit different. The Daily Wire article to which Erhard links also takes the “grooming” comment out of context.
Meanwhile, the content-desperate folks at WorldNetDaily loved Erhard’s drag queen-bashing so much, the MRC item served as a basis for its own article, right down to adapting her “sexualized man dressed as a woman” phrase to the headline and repeating the out-of-context “grooming” line.
If these kinds of articles are so homophobic that WND thinks this highly of them, the MRC might have a problem. It already has one in echoing WND the other way.