Pride is not dangerous. Hate is.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I thought last week was my last Pride-themed edition of Christian Mythbusters. Not so much. Last week the local county Republican party published an article denouncing our local Pride festival, calling it adult-entertainment, suggesting it was dangerous to children, and saying it should be held indoors and behind an 18+ doorway. Which is just ridiculous and offensive. So here I am, apparently with a few more myths to break. As much as the Ottawa GOP apparently wants to believe that a drag show is always adult entertainment, just saying it is over and over again in your newsletter doesn’t make it so. Perhaps some help from the dictionary can assist here. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines drag as “entertainment in which performers caricature or challenge gender stereotypes (as by dressing in clothing that is stereotypical of another gender, by using exaggeratedly gendered mannerisms, or by combining elements of stereotypically male and female dress) and often wear elaborate or outrageous costumes.” The article included pictures of some of the drag performers, with an expression of alarm that children are there. However, the performers are not nude. They are not even scantily clad. The drag queen’s rear end in the photo they highlight is actually covered with tights in addition to her glittery costume. One wonders if they have walked the boardwalk in Grand Haven recently, because there is far more skin on display on the boardwalk than was ever displayed by performers at the pride festival. They seem unable to draw the distinction between medium and content. Drag is a medium of performance that can have a variety of content suitable to different ages. In the same way that all movies are not R-rated, not all drag performances are inherently adult-themed in content. The medium is simply performance art that bends gender expressions and expectations. One does not have to read that far behind the lines to discern what their actual objection is: the fact that the performers are dressed in clothes from a gender other than the one they were presumably born into… and those performers are dancing. Not pole dancing. Just… dancing. It is precisely this kind of language—particularly raising claims of danger to children—that continues to put not only drag performers at risk but also trans and other gender non-conforming individuals. By portraying people who are not gender conforming as dangerous to children they dehumanize and vilify anyone who is not gender conforming, insisting that this sort of thing simply has no place in the public square. And when an official political party in our community takes up these attacks, they embolden other forms of transphobic hate. I wish the leadership of the Ottawa GOP would spend some time listening to the experience of trans and gender non-conforming people. I can show you screenshots of the vile, hateful, and violent attacks on our festival on social media. And what breaks my heart is that so many of these people claim to be followers of Jesus. I consider myself friends with several pastors in the area and I cannot imagine they would be encouraging their congregants to treat LGBGTQIA+ people this way. Because kids are in danger, absolutely. Kids are in danger from hateful rhetoric that says it’s dangerous to break gender norms or have a different sexual orientation. That’s why 43% of LGBTQIA youth considered attempting suicide. It’s why one in five attempted it in the past year. Kids are in danger, but it’s not from the Grand Haven Pride Festival and our drag shows. It’s from a culture that marginalizes, excludes, and attacks those who are different. And kids deserve to be protected from that. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.