Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center spent the first several months of the year spewing hate at drag queens, and it kept up the hate through the fall. Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, the MRC chief hater of all things LGBTQ, lashed out at "drag brunch" in an Oct. 19 post while parroting Fox News' Tucker Carlson and a far-right website:
Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I stand corrected.
Ebb & Flow restaurant in Plano Texas held a “Garden of Eden Drag Brunch” and featured a drag queen that danced to a song about his — er, her? — pussy. Dollar bills, smiling faces, clapping, and children made an appearance in video footage of the event.
Blaze TV host, Sara Gonzales, God bless her, attended the drag brunch and witnessed the performance first hand. Thank you for your sacrifice Ms. Gonzales.
The advertisement did indicate that the event “may not be appropriate for all ages” and left it up to the parents prerogative on whether to bring children.
Even so, as the video shows, children were in attendance. The video featured a child that couldn’t have been much older than five years old staring directly at the drag queen’s performance.
On Tucker Carlson Tonight, Gonzales talked about the event and called it “child abuse” for parents to bring their kids to something of the sort and allow them to sit and watch something so sexual.
She went on to irresponsibly attack people she has never met and falsely and maliciously smear them as criminals (no, really):
Regardless of how the TX restaurant advertised, it had no qualms allowing children in. If you bring your kids to something like this, you are a child abuser and should be treated as one. Our degenerate society is promoting and encouraging things like this and kids are in the direct line of fire.
The Ebb & Flow restaurant received hate mail and death threats after right-wingers like Mandelburg attacked it. We presume Mandelburg is satisfied with this development, since demonization and ostrazation is the goal of the anti-drag queen hate narrative.
An Oct. 19 post by Kevin Tober, hyped how "Fox News’s Jessica Chasmar reported that the Biden State Department had awarded a $20,600 grant to an Ecuador cultural center to host sexually inappropriate “drag theater performances," then grumbled that "All three evening news broadcast networks, ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News each ignored the Biden administration sending taxpayer dollars overseas to fund degenerate sexual shows." Mandelburg ranted about the miniscule amount of money going toward this in an Oct. 20 post under the hateful headline "Global Degeneracy":
I love seeing my taxpayer money get put to good use. Here, on the other hand, is the opposite.
The U.S. Department of State awarded $20,600 to help fund a cultural center in Ecuador, Centro Ecuatoriano Norteamericano (CEN), Fox News reported. The center is most excited to host around 12 drag queen performances with the funding from the United States.
The spending plan reportedly began on Sep. 30 and is set to end around Aug. 31, 2022. According to usaspending.gov the funds will “promote diversity and inclusion” by hosting “3 workshops, 12 drag performances, and produce a 2 minute documentary.”
Fox news pointed out that the CEN grant “is part of the State Department’s public diplomacy program, which seeks to "support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics and by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the people and government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world.”
OK so if I read that correctly, the U.S. State Department thinks that sending money to Ecuador for drag shows is going to help enhance “national security” through “strengthening relationships?” Huh?
All this money is going to do is further normalize this kind of — er, well — strange behavior.
Last weekend there was a drag brunch at a Texas restaurant and parents literally brought their children because they thought dressing up with plastic boobs, wigs, and 3-inch thick fake eyelashes is “normal” behavior.
I can assure you, it is not.
[...]
Meanwhile in the U.S. we have gas prices up the wazoo, there’s STILL a formula shortage, the cost of living in general is astronomical and inflation is 8.2 percent, yet we apparently have excess money to send to freaking Ecuador for DRAG QUEENS!?
If this is our taxpayer dollars at work, I would like a refund.
Tim Graham spent a Nov. 1 post personally attacking an Associated Press reporter for calling out right-wing hate of drag queens:
You know the media outlet is liberal when they go rushing to the defense of the "rich history" of drag queens. This Associated Press story was supportively tweeted out by the PBS NewsHour(and ran on its website):
The headline on PBS is "Analysis: Political rhetoric, false claims obscure the history of drag performance." AP labeled this piece an "Explainer."
AP reporter/editor on the case is Jeff McMillan, whose Twitter bio proclaims he's a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (complete with rainbow flag emoji). McMillan's also part of the AP Stylebook team, insuring all terminology is LGBTQ-approved.
Graham accused McMillan of "editorializing from the start." But the only claims he highlighted in boldface were that "Lately, drag has been dragged through the mud," that "The art form has been cast in a false light in recent months by right-wing activists and politicians," and that "The objections are often religious in nature, with some opponents citing the devil at work" -- all objective facts. Graham went on to whine:
Are there any conservatives or Republicans quoted? No. Surely AP wouldn't "lower itself" to engaging with Christopher Rufo, who recently analyzed the "rich history" of drag and Drag Queen Story Hours at length at City Journal.
Given that Rufo's attacks on critical race theory have been proven to be dishonest and false, perhaps he's not the best example Graham could be citing.
Mandelburg's Nov. 9 "Woke of the Weak" podcast raged at a "junior drag queen," sneering, "Someone needs to call CPS on whoever the parents are of that kid, because that is literal child abuse." More false and potentially libelous accusations of a crime. Maybe Mandelburg should be calling her lawyer to see what defense she has against the inevitable libel and defamation lawsuit she'll be facing for spreading lies about people she can't possibly know.
