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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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#”We’re coming for your children.”

The LGBTQ+ movement kicked out NAMBLA, genuine pederasts, in the 80’s in order to get sodomy laws aimed at consenting adults off the books. The American anti-pedophilia majority took a generation to accept this disavowal at face value.

The Pizzagate section of the Q or QAnon movement revived the bailey that gay people generally want to rape children to cultural relevance, and did so around the time the trans rights movement was pushing acceptance of transition. The motte version is that the gay community reproduces through social memetic contagion since they won’t reproduce sexually. One potent variation is the ironic and practically self-parodying “trans genocide” meme

The drag queen story hour program made the idea scarily realistic even to parents who didn’t subscribe to any of that conspiracy theory nonsense. And now there’s a new twist.

As chronicled by NBC News:


In the 21-second clip, circulated by a right-wing web streamer channel, dozens of people march in the streets and are clearly heard chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going shopping.” But one voice that is louder than the crowd — it’s not clear whose, or whether the speaker was a member of the LGBTQ community — is heard saying at least twice, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.”

To conservative pundits, activists and lawmakers, the video confirmed the allegations they’ve levied in recent years that the LGBTQ community is “grooming” children.

But to Brian Griffin, the original organizer of the NYC Drag March, if that’s the worst they heard, it’s only because he wasn’t there this year.

Griffin said he chanted obscene things in the past, like “Kill, kill, kill, we’re coming to kill the mayor,” and joked about pubic hair and sex toys during marches. People at the Drag March regularly sing “God is a lesbian.”

“It’s all just words,” Griffin said. “It’s all presented to fulfill their worst stereotypes of us.”

The “coming for your children” chant has been used for years at Pride events, according to longtime march attendees and gay rights activists, who said it’s one of many provocative expressions used to regain control of slurs against LGBTQ people. And in this case, they said, right-wing activists are jumping on a single video to weaponize an out-of-context remark to further stigmatize the queer community.

Conservative politicians and pundits have increasingly referred to advocates for LGBTQ rights as “groomers,” associating people who oppose laws that restrict drag performances or classroom discussions of gender identity with pedophiles. The charge is an echo of a decades-old trope anti-gay activists have used to paint the community as a threat to the country’s youths, an allegation that some advocates say endangers LGBTQ people. And the intense reaction to the video has scared some attendees, who insist the quip has been taken out of context.

“It’s really scary to us,” said Fussy Lo Mein, a drag performer and activist who was at this year’s march and declined to give their real name because of safety concerns. “It doesn’t represent everybody — it represents that individual. I thought it was a dumb idea, and I started chanting on top of it with alternate verses.”


This seems to be equivalent to the Charlottesville “White Rights” event where “Jews will not replace us” was supposedly chanted. The outgroup only hears “WE ARE A THREAT TO EVERYONE YOU LOVE AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD SACRED,” while the ingroup appreciates the nuance and gets a bit freaked out at the outgroup seeing only the surface level interpretation.

Just because the "Jews will not replace us" chant was meant to be provocative, and even playful on some level, does not mean it wasn't saying something meaningful- it was. The ingroup doesn't interpret it the exact same way as the outgroup, but it was still a slogan that spoke to the relationship between demographic change and Jewish cultural influence as interpreted by the people who were saying the chant. Likewise, "We're coming for your children" is saying something very real... no, the people that said that aren't all trying to physically abuse children, but the statement means they intend to influence the perception of children towards the LGBT movement in defiance of their opposition.

Imagine you go to the library, pick a book that is ostensibly about the adventures of the cute pig on the cover, only to get home, start reading it to your children, and realize that the message the story is... Jews will not replace us. I can say it has now happened 3 times our nanny has brought home a book from the public library that seemed completely innocuous on the cover, only to turn out to be LGBT propaganda geared towards toddlers.

They are coming at my children with their propaganda, there's no denying it, all you can do is hope they won't be influenced by it despite the mounting social pressure. As of two days ago, Obergefell v. Hodges was only eight years ago when the country was very much still divided on the question of gay marriage. The present state of the culture proves that all those decades of conservative tropes were correct, and yes, they are coming for your children in order to influence them positively towards that culture.

hypothetical books for children on "Jewish cultural influence", whatever that means, is more insidious than books containing LGBT themes.

Why?

Thanks for linking that, didn't know about Superman's name being Jewish. His arguments as to the motivations of his creators seem very well thought out in this comment. What exactly do you disagree with there?

Glad kids don't really give a fuck about Superman anymore after reading that.