An anti-LGBT organizer from Torrance, California held a press conference in Chula Vista Aug. 29 in an effort to prevent drag queens from reading to children at a local library.
Arthur Schaper is an organizer for Mass Resistance, a national conservative anti-LGBT group that has protested Drag Queen Story Hour throughout the country.
“Moms and dads and parents across this country need to stand up and say we’ve had it with LGBT, it shouldn’t be forced on our kids, this is not an agenda we should be promoting or accommodating, it’s based on lies and it shouldn’t be supported,” Schaper said at the conference.
DQSH is a national program that was established in San Francisco in 2018, where drag queens read stories to children in libraries, schools and bookstores to encourage acceptance, celebrate diversity and give kids positive queer role models, according to their website.
The first Drag Queen Story Hour in Chula Vista is scheduled to take place at 4 p.m. on Sept. 10. It was originally scheduled to take place at Chula Vista’s Otay Ranch library, but has been relocated to the Civic Center branch to accommodate an increase in demand.
Schaper said he organized a press conference at Chula Vista’s civic center library after Chula Vista residents reached out to him because they were concerned about DQSH.
According to South Bay United Pentecostal Church Executive Pastor and father of four Amado Huizar two women who frequent the Otay Ranch Town Center library became aware of the reading and raised concerns with a religious group Huizar is a member of.
The group, Salt & Light Council, provided contact information to several groups, including Mass Resistance, as a possible resource for raising awareness.
Huizar said as a father, he doesn’t believe that drag queens reading to children is age appropriate. However, he decided not to attend the news conference and has been meeting with city council members instead.
“Mass Resistance has a differing way to share their message. I want to come in love and have a peaceful conversation about this,” Huizar said.
The press conference on Thursday drew a few dozen people, some protesting DQSH alongside Schaper, and others counter-protesting the anti-LGBT rhetoric.
Chula Vista police officers were present and stepped between protestors and counter-protestors a couple times, as they shouted at each other.
“This is perverse, adult, illicit entertainment. The [DQSH] website itself declares — they don’t hide the agenda — they want to teach gender fluidity and have queer role models. These behaviors are destructive,” Schaper said.
He spoke at a podium to media, followed by other protestors who explained their opposition to DQSH, many citing religious reasons.
“That is not of God. That is evil. That is perverted.” A mother & Chula Vista resident said at the podium. She would not give her name.
Chula Vista residents Mike McCabe, 67, and Maria Mallay, who would not give her age, attended the press conference to protest DQSH and held signs that read “No drag queens for our children.”
“There’s nothing wrong with adults attending a drag show if that’s what they want to do, no problem. But this type of activity had no place in a public library funded by taxpayers,” Mallay said.
McCabe said that he believes there should be public input before the city decides to sponsor an event like DQSH.
Chula Vista resident and retired teacher Shelley Rudd, 66, said she supports inclusion and doesn’t see a problem with DQSH.
“It makes me very, very sad in this day and age that we still have so many people with these kinds of sad, sad, sick attitudes,” Rudd said. “My family represents everything on the LGBTQ spectrum, they’re people in my family, and I support them.”
Chula Vista resident and TransFamily Support Services Vice President Stephanie York said she supports DQSH.
“They get a bad wrap. They’re just here to entertain the kids and have some fun, and if it’s not something that you’re into, great, you’re allowed your own opinion, and don’t come to story time,” York said.
City council member and former Chula Vista Mayor Steve Padilla released a statement denouncing the backlash to Drag Queen Story Hour before the news conference was held.
“I am disappointed that some voices both from inside and outside our community have chosen to use the upcoming Drag Queen Storytime as an opportunity to perpetuate long discredited false and discriminatory narratives targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the name of protecting children,” the statement reads.
Cornelius Johnson a.k.a. Strawberry Corncakes, 29, is a local drag queen who will be showing support and counter-protesting at DQSH on Sept. 10.
“A lot of people that don’t agree with it like to say that we’re sexual predators. or that we’re pushing gender onto people, but that is not our job at all,” Johnson said.
Johnson invites people that are unsure about drag, or unfamiliar with drag to come out to Drag Queen Story Hour to see what it’s all about.
“It is something as simple as a character, a performer, reading something to a child,” Johnson said.
