Air Force base drops 'Drag Queen Story Time' from Pride Month plans following backlash
RAMSTEIN-MIESENBACH, GERMANY (TND) — A U.S. Air Force base in Germany canceled its “Drag Queen Story Time” following backlash from critics, including a U.S. Senator.
A library at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the largest American airbase in Germany and headquarters of the Air Force in Europe, was slated to hold the activity to celebrate Pride Month on June 2.
But when U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, caught wind of what was going on, he immediately wrote a letter urging U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to cancel the event.
After receiving the letter, the Air Force canceled the event, Rubio’s office said in a news release.
“An advertisement was posted to the base library social media page before the event had completed Ramstein’s established processes for special observance coordination and approval,” Lt. Col. Will Powell, chief of public affairs for the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein, told The Military Times. “The advertisement has been removed and the event will not take place.”
The last thing parents serving their nation overseas should be worried about, particularly in a theater with heightened geopolitical tensions, is whether their children are being exposed to sexually charged content simply because they visited their local library," Rubio wrote in his letter to Secretary Kendall.
Drag queen-related activities targeted at children have been appearing frequently in the news recently and garnering criticism from parents.
“Story times” alongside drag queens have become a particularly common event highlighted in the media.
Two publicly funded libraries in Illinois expect to host their own “drag queen story time,” as well as a “drag kids dress up,” at their upcoming local “PrideFest,” according to a Facebook event by Waukegan Public Library, Lake County PrideFest and LGBTQ+ Center of Lake County.
“It’s not like there’s no kernel of truth in that maybe kids that young shouldn’t be thinking about sex at all,” liberal comedian and pundit Bill Maher said in reference to Florida’s new law preventing discussions about sex in its schools’ lowest grades.
