Drag Queens: Arizona lawmakers rally a lynch mob
And Sheriff Katie Hobbs stands in their way
My good friend Molly shared an insight with me recently. “Lady Liberty is a Dyke. Just look at her.” I gave my favorite icon a look and I’ll be damned if Molly isn’t right. Lib does looks butch, with her resolute iron jaw and her strong take-no-crap Goddess of Democracy demeanor. Hellya. No wonder our Amazon of the Americas, our kick-ass Colossus, practices radical welcome.
Which brings me to Arizona’s Republican lawmakers who are working night and day to protect our children from drag queens.
What’s next? Mimes? Now there’s a threat. Sneaky devils. They work silently, handing out “invisible flowers”, like candy, to strangers.
Our Bible skimming lawmakers have settled on dragging Arizona’s drag queens behind their pickups through the mud, smearing them as child predators.
Hello, 1952! If these divinely inspired dolts were really looking for theatrical institutions that harbor pedophiles they’d be looking under the pews at the Southern Baptist Churches that hid their plethora of pedophiles under the Rock of Ages for decades. Or in the Kingdom Halls of the Jehovah's “Wait until there are no witnesses” Witnesses. Or the rectories of the Catholic Churches famous for their male performers who wear long, flowing skirts to every fabulously divine Sunday performance. Or…I’ll stop there because you don’t have all day.
And how many of these Taliban lawgivers are the same yahoos who lick their lips over “Toddlers and Tiaras”? But I digress.
Question: Rather than bullying and persecuting drag queens, who are among the most gifted, talented theatrical performers this desert rat has ever known, why not point your rabid hounds in the direction of the paranoia-peddling anti-LQBTQ+ pulpit pounders who scapegoat what they do not understand?
Answer: You’d actually be addressing a real issue. And that is beyond your skill set, Torquemada.
I have had the privilege of savoring the performances of Arizona’s stellar drag queens such as the fabulous “Tempest du Jour”, “Fulta Burstyn”, “Lil Miss Hot Mess” and of course, my two favorite drag queens, “Mrs. Kari Lake”, a dominatrix act based on her character’s “Lust to Govern” and the incomparable Bettie Page and Morticia impersonator “Justine Wadsack”.
Mr. Justin Wadsack’s “Morticia tribute” shot him to Fox News fame when he appeared in drag on a public school campus at a Vail School Board meeting. Critics agreed “Justine” was “crazy, kooky and altogether spooky”.
Another cabaret theatre critic wrote, “A member of the ‘Arizona Freedom from Girdles and Pumps’ Caucus, Wadsack is Kubuki gold for every tin-foil top hat wearing Billybob in Arizona’s backwoods who can scroll twitter, and whittle a club for the next insurrection, at the same time.”
My all-time favorite drag queen has to be the “Unsinkable Mrs. Kari Lake”, a human being impersonator, who often tours with the “Cyber Ninja Sluts” in Arizona’s rural venues.
Mrs. Lake’s savage political satire was on display in Show Low last Saturday night. “I don’t know how much longer the people can take it,” Lake said, wearing a bedazzled crown of thorns, and dancing with a life-size cross as she winked at the crowd in Bubba’s Bathhouse, “Can you all believe this crazy, whacky-carnival-Mardi-Gras-Ru-Paul-transgender-freak-show that’s happening in front our kids?! In front of our Children! Folks, stop bringing your little Gomers and Boo Boos to my shows!”
“Mrs. Lake”, Arizona’s queen of the drag queens, often tweets satire to her fans. “They kicked God out of schools and welcomed the Drag Queens. They took down our Flag and replaced it with a rainbow.”
A rainbow flag! Her crowd roars when she claims, “the only thing that can vaporize Mrs. Lake faster than a bucket of Oz water is a rainbow flag!'“
“They seek to disarm Americans and militarize our Enemies. Let’s bring back the basics: God, Guns & Glory.” Nice shout out, “Mrs. Lake”, for “God, Guns and Glory” a drag queen trio from Apache Junction, featuring the fastest sewing machine in the West. “Speaking of God, Guns and Glory, did I tell you what God said to me? He said, ’Jump in a lake! Your campaign’s shooting blanks! And the only glory you will ever find is a late night slot on Radio Mar-a-lago.’ Ha, ha, ha!”
With Governor Hobbs in office this anti-drag bill will get as far as a Cyber Ninja in heels trying to cross a cattle guard in Cochise County.
Hobbs knows suggesting drag queens are child predators sounds like the kind of hate-fueled scapegoating you’d expect from Munich nazis in ’38, not from Holbrook book burners, Kingman Klansmen or our fine Pinetop Proud Boys in 2023.
Sen. John “Captain Christian” Kavanagh, from the Fiefdom of Fountain Hills, said, “This bill will outlaw immoral, lustful, titillating, lascivious, erotic, shameful, disgusting terrible, horrible, evil, sinful sexual conduct, not to mention the kind of sexually explicit nudity that really straightens my bola tie. Not to mention the sadomasochistic sexual abuse. Which is what you’ll find at my public hearings. I love to muzzle the audience. If I could put red balls in their mouths I would.”
If I had his tiny gavel I’d gavel out a warning: Love between our brothers and sisters, and each other, is in peril. My favorite assertion by this ass: “State government property should not be used to promote pornographic performances.”
Let’s start with your obscene goose-stepping dominatrix performances, Kinky Boots Kavanaugh.
We’ve seen you muzzle, bind and screw Arizona voters for years.
We’ve seen you loot our treasury for your donors tucking their big bucks in your “Sky King” G-string.
We’ve caught your “Daddy” act when you humiliate public education and make them beg for more.
And we love your closing song and dance number inspired by your favorite musical, “Music Man”.
There’ll be no drag shows on public property, by God, not here in Riverless City,
Because the next thing you know,
Your boy will be playing billiards for money in a pinch-back suit,
And listenin' to some big outta town jasper,
Hearin' him tell about horse race gamblin’.
And you got trouble right here in our public schools.
Right here in Riverless City, trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for predators, predators,predators…”
Referring to drag queens Mr. Wadsack said, “What I do have a problem with is when they go into the public libraries or into the schools.“
Yeah, don’t you just hate it when anyone goes into a library? What Pre-K story hour did I miss? Mr.Wadsack went on to display convoluted logic, as twisted as his panty hose after a School Board performance, when he bravely declared “a 5-year-old does not need to be going up to a drag queen and putting dollar bills in their G-string.”
So true. Now there’s a profile in political courage. Stand tall in your MAGA heels, Mr. Wadsack. There are a lot of things five-year olds do not need to be doing. Like occupying an Arizona Senate seat. Or making policy with all the other Trump-suckling toddlers in Arizona’s demented legislature.
Do you know what the children in this state need to be protected from?
The childen in this state desperately need to be protected from shooters with combat weapons. The childen in this state desperately need to be protected from their parents dying from a fentanyl overdose. Or going hungry in 2023. Or becoming yet one more homeless kid. Or losing a job to a global competitor educated in a modern 21st century state. And our legislators, who don’t give a damn about the kids in this state.
Brilliant rant and could not agree more, David!
RIGHT ON!!!!!