Libraries across America have hosted events called “Drag Queen Story Time,” involving grown men dressing in drag and reading to little children. One of these drag queens admitted he performs in order to “groom” the next generation — although it seems he did not understand what those words mean.
“I’m here to let you know that this event is something that’s going to be very beautiful and for the children and the people that support it are going to realize that this is going to be the grooming of the next generation,” Dylan Pontiff testified at a Lafayette City-Parish Council meeting in September.
The openly gay man said many people stared at him with daggers in their eyes. “We are trying to groom the next generation to not see the way that they just did,” Pontiff said, in a video reported by LifeSiteNews. The meeting considered a motion to denounce the drag queen event proposed for October 6 as inappropriate for young children.
In explaining what he meant by “grooming,” the drag queen said, “We are trying to teach people to be tolerable, to be patient, to be loving.” He recalled being “bullied for most of my life for being a gay male.”
“I thought this event could be something that shows people and shows children — especially at that age — that understanding that people are different than you doesn’t necessarily make them anormal or makes [sic] them not good,” Pontiff explained. In other words, he wants to mainstream homosexuality, so people do not bully openly gay people.
Even those who think homosexual activity is wrong disapprove of bullying. But that does not mean people should support “Drag Queen Story Time.”
Leslie Alexander, a member of the community, told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, “This is not about tolerance or anti-bullying. It is a direct and intentional effort to create gender confusion and doubt among very young children at the very time they need solid guidance and understanding. The intent is to plant a seed to make children more likely to question their sexuality or gender at a later age.”
“Unfortunately, the Drag Queen Story Hour program is turning public libraries into platforms to advance the transgender revolution, places where pro-homosexual activists are given access to children as young as three,” John Ritchie, director of TFP Student Action, told LifeSiteNews.
Pontiff admitted being accused of “pushing the trans agenda” and “pushing an overly sexualized agenda,” but he argued “that is furthest from the truth. I am not there to push any kind of agenda.”
“I am just as talented as a singer or a danger or anyone that has a special talent, it’s just mine is dressing up as a woman and entertaining a crowd,” he claimed. “I can go and entertain adults at a club but also entertain a group of students and young children. I am able to do that because I’m an adult and I know how to filter myself.”
Contrary to his protestations, Pontiff is indeed pushing an agenda. He may not intend to push transgender identity or sexualization, but he does intend to push the normalization of homosexuality — something many people in Lafayette, La. firmly oppose. Whatever his intentions, the drag queen’s performance will indeed expose gender confusion to children as young as 3.
Furthermore, whatever he meant to say, Pontiff did indeed say he was “grooming the next generation.” While “grooming” often means dressing up or cleaning an animal, in the context of children it has a far nastier denotation.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “grooming” in that context means “the criminal activity of becoming friends with a child, especially over the Internet, in order to try to persuade the child to have a sexual relationship.”
Pontiff is likely not a pedophile, and he likely was not intending to confess to using “Drag Queen Story Time” to start sexual relationships with young children. But that is what his statement — if isolated from the later context — actually meant.
Pontiff needs to consult a dictionary for more than just the word “grooming.” He kept denouncing as “imporable” “some of the opinions that I’ve seen and some of the looks that I received here tonight.”
“There’s probably fifty people behind me, looking at me with daggers, wishing that I would probably die in a car wreck whenever I leave here. It’s truly implorable,” the drag queen said.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “implore” means “to ask someone in a determined, sincere, and sometimes emotional way to do or not to do something,” so “implorable” means “able to be implored,” or “persuadable.” The word Pontiff was really looking for is “deplorable,” which means “very bad,” and after 2016 has a political connotation.
While Pontiff aimed to convince people that “Drag Queen Story Time” is a good thing, he likely only convinced locals that he really does have a hidden agenda — the normalization of homosexuality, if not something far more sinister.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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