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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   37807 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I do endorse the groomer rhetoric because it's actually engaging in the debate on a symbolic level in the way progressives have only been able to since the conservative defeat on gay marriage. I don't think it's a moral panic for conservatives to appreciate the symbolic humiliation of drag queen story hour:

Children learn their lessons- their notion of reality and right and wrong, through stories. A story hour is a safe place for childen to learn through stories, and furthermore the storyteller is usually a trusted figure in the community like a teacher, mayor, or president. There is something symbolically revolutionary about children sitting in a circle around a flamboyant drag queen and being told a story. That symbolically matters. As hesitant as I am to endorse the rhetoric of the boomerwaffen, I can't fault them for picking this battle and I think it's gaslighting honestly to call their discernment of a sexually-charged augmentation to a symbolically important community ritual involving children a "moral panic."

Agree. It's effective rhetoric. And not completely unfounded either

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_Queen_Story_Hour

In 2017 and 2018, the organization had a convicted child sex offender perform in the Houston Public Library.[17] The library had failed to do the background check that is part of its usual process for storytellers. The library apologized and recognized its shortcoming in not properly vetting the performer in question.[18]

How does that story in any way corroborate the 'groomer' narrative? Ok, there was one drag artist who took advantage of the potential for close access to children, but that could equally happen in all sorts of other scenarios (teachers, clergy, sports coaches etc.) and that is never considered grounds to smear the entire group with the tar of the 'groomer' label. And as for the library's failure to vet, seems like just ordinary laziness is the most likely explanation.

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