The Houston Public Library released an apology statement on March 15 after it admitted allowing a sex offender to read to children during “Drag Queen Storytime” last September. Pro-family organization Mass Resistance uncovered the details regarding the convicted sex offender.
Albert Alfonso Garza, 32, was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault of an 8-year-old boy in Texas on Sept. 9, 2009. According to Mass Resistance, the group had warned the library and demanded they do background checks of the drag queens who were participating in the reading for children—an activity held in schools, libraries, and bookstores in the United States.
Houston MassResistance exposes “Drag Queen Story Hour” cross-dresser as registered child sex offender! Library officials forced to apologize to public. See explosive video! https://t.co/SDfN8rPCGx pic.twitter.com/dNWMEjJdEe
— massresistance.org (@MassResistance) March 17, 2019
“The team’s been protesting [Drag Queen Storytime], our numbers have been steadily rising,” MassResistance Organization Director Arthur Schaper said in an interview with NTD News. “Then Tracy [Shannon] got the name of these individuals and started doing her own background research.”
The group has taken a hard stance against Drag Queen Storytime, producing a 168-page report detailing what they describe as the lucid and erotic behavior of the participating drag queens. MassResistance Co-leader Tracy Shannon released the report at a press conference on March 15.
Derailing the “Drag Queen Story Hour.” How the Houston politicians & library officials caved in to MassResistance parents. SEE: https://t.co/wnosexPmGz pic.twitter.com/BzekndQJrA
— massresistance.org (@MassResistance) March 4, 2019
Questions of Adult Sexuality Have No Place Around Young Children
Participating drag queens have been documented to be “immersed in erotica, fetish play, sadomasochism,” sometimes publicizing their sexual acts on social media, according to the report. The report states that if a teacher were to post such explicit sexual content, they would be fired, yet the library has welcomed the drag queens.
“And this is being turned into, ‘Well, if you don’t like it, then don’t bring your kids,'” Schaper said. “Here’s the problem: This is normalizing an ideology that’s destructive and it’s hurting the children—it’s hurting our country. It puts more people at risk and we have every right to say, ‘This is not acceptable.'”
MassResistance fight against ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ targeting children goes national! Our latest activism in New York, Alaska, & Michigan. SEE: https://t.co/X921lWtJdY pic.twitter.com/N8TLCVGWRK
— massresistance.org (@MassResistance) December 12, 2018
In an interview with Dr. Quentin Van Meter, president of the American College of Pediatricians, he said that from what he has seen, drag queens wear erotically outlandish clothing, many working in strip clubs.
Drag queens have argued that activities such as Drag Queen Storytime teach kids to be tolerant, teaching them acceptance.
“It’s a nice theory but when it has to do with adult sexuality, it’s an inappropriate thing to throw this in the face of children who are extremely impressionable,” Van Meter said. “The Piaget theory of cognitive development … suggests that a five-year-old who sees someone in a costume—a man, wearing a costume as a woman—firmly believes that that person has changed.”
This then creates a great deal of confusion in the child’s perception of himself, Van Meter said.
“The content of drag queen story hours makes no sense in a society that has some sort of a moral compass, if you will … You’re, again, bringing a person—not just as a character, like a Disney character—you’re bringing someone with adult sexuality into the environment of young children and having that be normalized.”
Mission Doesn’t Stop There
Though the media has widely covered the incident, Schaper said that MassResistance’s work is not finished. Now they aim to defund the libraries that have been involved in such activities.
“It’s not enough if they cancelled this program for now,” Schaper said. “Because there is always this perverse intent to try to bring it back.”
The Houston Public Library has since relocated the Drag Queen Storytelling event.
