'Drag Queen Story Hour' No More After Texas City Council Vote

Ferlon Webster Jr. | September 4, 2019
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The City Council of Leander, Texas voted 5-2 to halt the renting out of space at a local library to public organizations in August, which in effect, ends the town’s capabilities of having the extremely odd “Drag Queen Story Hour” for children, according to local station KXAN.

“Drag Queen Story Hour” is a time when men wear heavy makeup and dress as woman to read stories to children — often dealing with “gender issues” — and pro-family advocates have been fed up with this. 

“These are people who are actually employed at adult nightclubs,” Mary Elizabeth Castle, a policy adviser for Texas Values, a nonprofit organization that promotes faith, family, and freedom, told The Daily Signal. “And so those people shouldn’t be reading to children.” 

As the local outlet reports:

While 'Drag Queen Story Time' didn’t end up happening in Leander due to a scheduling conflict, it came very close. 

'Originally the Leander Public Library scheduled a ‘Drag Queen Story Time,’ but that event was canceled by the City Council,' James Wesolek, a communications associate for Texas Values, told The Daily Signal in an email. 

'Then a so-called ‘church’ rented the library and scheduled their own ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’; however, the drag queen canceled at the last minute due to an unavoidable work conflict, and the event became a family pride festival.'

Marci Cannon of the Leander City Council told her colleagues that the library should be used for what it was meant for:

“The library is called the library,” Cannon said. “It’s not the library activity center or library rec center. It was built to serve the city of Leander as a library.”

Leander Mayor Troy Hill added his thoughts, saying the cost of holding the controversial and unneeded event didn’t make sense.

“We brought in $1,800 in rental fees and we spent $20,000 in security. That’s not good math to me,” Hill said.

This move will not only affect the story hour but anyone else who wants to hold a public event at the library. 

 

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