I’m not sure I could accurately place Boise on a map, but the city’s relative obscurity doesn’t mean it can’t have a really progressive LGBT scene, including a special “Drag Kids” event planned for their Pride Festival:
Remember that California has just passed a new law, SB 1100, to protect local legislative bodies against “bullying” from people who do hateful things like disagreeing with them, and that the recent failure of another (spectacularly offensive) bill in the state legislature was the product of “harassment”, by which the author of the bill meant that the peasantry forcefully and persistently criticized it. And you should definitely read this two–part essay from Bat Cattitude on the technocratic presumption that disagreement with technocrats can only be dangerous extremism.
With that background in mind, consider a modest victory in the most dismal battlefield of the culture war, and then watch the response to it.
This one happens in Boise, a purple town in a red state. This year’s Boise Pride Festival was all set to feature an event called Drag Kids:
“Now it is time to see the kids”, sexy eleven year-olds shaking that dirty little moneymaker on the stage. So hot. So empowering!
[…]
Now, the Big Pivot: Boise Pride pays its bills by soliciting the support of corporate sponsors, so a bunch of corporations suddenly found themselves sponsoring the sexuality-incorporating performances of some hot little eleven year-olds. They quickly began to jump clear of the thing:
Because bigotry still prevails in Amerikkka, see, corporations aren’t brave enough to stand up and support the sexy eleven year-olds in their extremely hot sexiness. Atavists! Prudes!
Now, here come the politicians. The mayor of Boise, Lauren McLean, is Very Disappointed In You All™:
Slogan slogan slogan, slogan slogan, slogan slogan slogan. A spotlight on the critical need for a conversation about standing together!
If you challenged Mayor NPC to publicly identify specific pieces of inflammatory rhetoric that were important and central to the controversy, she couldn’t; she just knows that the “inflammatory rhetoric” box has to be checked, because Mean Republicans objected to something involving an LGBT event, specifics not important. Nor could she explain how sexy children represent the dignity of all people, or respond coherently to a discussion about sexual commodification and the erasure of childhood. She has a list of slogans. She deploys them.
