Thank you for the Chattanoogan article excerpting comments expressed about "Pride Week" at the Chattanooga City Council meeting this week. Apparently now June is LGBT Pride Month but now October has been declared LBGT History Month, in case you did not get enough of it in June.
There have been strong objections raised about events targeting "youth" after videos of very young children at the "festivities" received national attention. This was much worse than the kindergarten drag queen story time hours making the news.
The council comments serve as a case study of how the local chapter of the rainbow mafia diverted attention from the vulgarity of their sordid events targeting children, and the disturbed parents who exposed children to that vulgarity, by changing the subject. Instead of addressing behavior that all but the most psycho-sexually confused individuals would consider offensive, the event sponsors proffered a blame-shifting pivot, claiming they, not the children, are the victims.
Event coordinator Noah Corbin insisted the objections are "rooted in hate" by homophobic and transphobic "hate groups." He claimed, "We're seeing the fear and hate get louder and louder."
Predictably, his "hate" diversion was a dog whistle for some emotionally incontinent council members to pile on.
Councilwoman Jenny Hill expressed concern about safe spaces: "Everyone deserves to feel safe in Chattanooga. I would love to think we are past the day where people are in danger for being different." Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod was able to stir in some racism: "We ostracize people who are different. The same way that gay people are treated black people are treated."
The diversion strategy worked -- concern for the actual child victims was drowned out by all the narcissistic noise by the adult "victims" demanding attention. Of that noise, Scott Graham observed, "I've heard a lot about respecting everybody's rights, but not one person on this dais has assured anyone that the children will be protected."
Corbin then asserted that there was nothing offensive about the little girl stroking the groin of one "performer" in a video, because that person was "not a drag queen but a biological female," as if that made it okay. He then noted that the performer "was dressed as Ariel in the Little Mermaid," further making the case that this was a child grooming event.
Ironically, Corbin put forth a binary gender defense to make his case, breaking with the Left's standard objection to the reality that there are, in fact, only two genders. Furthermore, these "youth" events were advertised as featuring "drag queens" so apparently that female performer must be guilty of some degree of cultural trans-dressing appropriation.
Responding to the objections, Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp offered a more appropriate response: "This isn't hard. Parents shouldn't take kids to drag shows and business owners shouldn't host drag shows aimed at children. ... These aren't our values." And he is right.
Indeed, what consenting adults do with each other is their business, but the planners of "Pride" events targeting children, and those business venues supporting such sordid events, should be held accountable for their actions.
Mark Caldwell