{"id":1665658,"date":"2022-09-30T03:03:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T07:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1665658"},"modified":"2022-09-30T03:04:23","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T07:04:23","slug":"lack-of-interest-shut-down-a-pennsylvania-drag-show-local-democrats-blamed-it-on-republican-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lack-of-interest-shut-down-a-pennsylvania-drag-show-local-democrats-blamed-it-on-republican-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack Of Interest Shut Down A Pennsylvania Drag Show. Local Democrats Blamed It On Republican \u2018Hate\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flack-of-interest-shut-down-a-pennsylvania-drag-show-local-democrats-blamed-it-on-republican-hate%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1665658&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Until relatively recently, Chester County, Pennsylvania, was reliably Republican. Countywide offices are now held by Democrats, in part because years of competent administration attracted many upper-class white liberal refugees from the increasingly costly and dysfunctional counties that contain Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs. <\/p>\n<p>The county seat of Chester County is West Chester. With a population of 20,000, it has been run by Democrats for over a decade. The borough council, in coordination with the West Chester Business Improvement District, planned its first \u201cOutFest\u201d for Oct. 1 in celebration of National Coming Out Day. Two blocks of the city\u2019s downtown would showcase no fewer than eight drag queens over four hours. Predictably, members of the public made their opposition known to borough council president Michael Stefano, who described the emails he received as \u201chate-filled\u201d and \u201cvitriolic.\u201d Of course, none of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/news\/pennsylvania\/west-chester-outfest-canceled-backlash-20220922.html\">\u201cdozens\u201d<\/a> of messages were made public, and the local press accepted his characterization without question. These protests led to the cancellation of OutFest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At least, this is what left-wing activists on social media want us to believe. Stefano inflamed their ire: \u201cI was kind of na\u00efve to the fact that there\u2019s still a lot of people out there who have hatred for people who are different from them.\u201d While he wanted to portray opposition to the event as evidence of so-called homophobia, it was clear that, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/news\/pennsylvania\/west-chester-outfest-canceled-backlash-20220922.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a>, the protesters took \u201cparticular issue with the fact that drag queens were set to perform.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Stefano made no distinction between \u201caccepting of the LGBTQ community\u201d and city sponsorship of a public political event that conveyed messages parents might not want their children to hear. Stefani Steel, a drag queen who describes himself as a \u201cNorthern East Coast Whore\u201d on his Instagram page, was scheduled to perform. He revealed to the Inquirer his desire to spread queer culture to previously uncorrupted communities: \u201chaving queer events in new areas is super important to all of us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Eddy Foster, who is now organizing a replacement event, did not help his cause when he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/news\/pennsylvania\/west-chester-outfest-canceled-backlash-20220922.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">linked drag performances to \u201cpride\u201d parades<\/a>: \u201cThere have been drag queens at gay events, at Pride, at OutFest, across the country for 40-plus years,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is something that goes hand in hand. It\u2019s normal and we\u2019re not going to act like it\u2019s not.\u201d Pride parades have never epitomized modesty or good taste, nor have drag performances, and both are wholly inappropriate for children. The whole point of events like this is to normalize queer culture and to vilify and silence anyone who objects. <\/p>\n<p>Steel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/west-chester-outfest-canceled\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">told the local CBS affiliate<\/a> that he modifies his performances if there are children in the audience. If there are children, he says, his performance is reminiscent of a Disney character. Dressing like Minnie Mouse, however, is unlikely to convey the queer message the organizers intend. A recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/reduxx.info\/children-tipped-drag-queens-during-performance-at-adult-bar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">scandalous drag show<\/a> attended by children in Dallas, Texas, only confirms the ill-advisability of such public performances.<\/p>\n<p>While bigotry is a handy excuse for the city council and social media activists to use as a cudgel against their critics, the actual reasons for the event\u2019s demise are less politically convenient. While the organizers wanted to put the blame on nameless bigots, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DowntownWestChesterPA\/photos\/a.531395270231842\/5586837548020897\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a statement<\/a> announcing the cancellation admitted that there were \u201cmany logistical challenges that contributed to this decision, including a low number of vendors and volunteers to make it a successful event.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Organizers also <a href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/west-chester-pa-outfest-canceled-lgbtq-community-borough-council\/12245300\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a> that because of a few dozen objections, security needed to be increased, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/west-chester-outfest-canceled\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cdespite the absence of any threats.\u201d<\/a> The largest police department in the county was either too ill-prepared to meet the challenge or too expensive given the available budget. So while the very progressive Democrat townsfolk did not want to subsidize or participate in the first city-sponsored drag show, it was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WestChesterBoroughRepublicanCommittee\/posts\/pfbid0peUKkcLEaAjnxpqvQCo8XBJwLe6X2PXtkr7Eyy67VkGKTCAvgDL1TxNnuzvSskTzl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">four-sentence post<\/a> on the local Republican Committee Facebook page that was blamed for shutting everything down.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The post read in part: \u201cIf you feel this is inappropriate as we do, please make your voice heard to borough council.\u201d For daring to \u201cpetition their government for the redress of grievances,\u201d the local committee received a torrent of \u201chate-filled and vitriolic\u201d outbursts from supposedly tolerant leftists. Meanwhile, Stefano <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/news\/pennsylvania\/west-chester-outfest-canceled-backlash-20220922.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">admitted<\/a> that no one who emailed him mentioned any association with the Republican Committee. <\/p>\n<p>It occurred to no one that the city\u2019s marketing had successfully reached citizens with minds of their own. Republican residents do not have the power to cancel anything the Democrat city council proposes without support from their liberal neighbors. <\/p>\n<p>Around the country, opposition to leftists forcing their sexual agenda on children hasn\u2019t been only from Republicans. Glenn Youngkin won the governorship of Virginia last year in part because parents across the political spectrum rose up against the crazed ideologues who run the state\u2019s public schools. It turns out that doing the right thing \u2014 in this case, respecting parents and protecting children from sexual predation \u2014 can unite people who under normal circumstances would find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  John M. Vella served as the editor of Crisis magazine and the managing editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. His writings can be found in Crisis, Chronicles, American Conservative, Chesterton Review, Touchstone, and other publications. He earned a Master\u2019s degree in History in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until relatively recently, Chester County, Pennsylvania, was reliably Republican. Countywide offices are now held by Democrats, in part because years of competent administration attracted many upper-class white liberal refugees from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1403,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1665658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1665658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1665658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1665658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1665658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}