Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton’s proposed legislation to ban bringing children to sexual drag shows is being held up as a shining example of conservative hypocrisy.
“You, sir, have tweeted more about #drag than the loss at #Uvalde. Is this truly about children or politics?” Texas drag performer Alyssa Edwards said to Slaton last week.
“Apparently, we’re more deadly than guns,” said Denali Foxx, a performer on the show RuPaul’s Drag Race.
“Texans don’t need a nanny y’all, & that’s who the GOP wants to be. Over your shoulder, judging your parenting every single day,” said Democratic Texas State Rep. Erin Zwiener, accusing Slaton of wanting to protect children from “everything but the firearms that are actually killing them.”
These criticisms are off-base. Declining to pass gun control laws that conflict with Second Amendment rights while desiring to protect children from sexual displays is a consistent position. It flows from a correct assessment of the limitations and strengths of government.
The government can’t prevent every tragedy because it can’t change people. Gun control laws often portray gun ownership itself as the problem and assume more restrictions will lead to less violence, ignoring underlying problems such as mental health and a widespread sense of meaninglessness. Suicides, for example, account for two-thirds of gun deaths.
Even outlawing guns entirely wouldn’t end violence. It would just find other avenues for expression. There may be ways for the government to make it harder for people to commit violent acts, such as enhancing school security and ensuring that police enforce the law, but changing people’s intentions is beyond the ability of legislators.
Moreover, Slaton’s proposal fits within conservatism’s view of the government and its responsibilities. While leftists have argued that taking a child to a drag show is an individual parenting decision rather than one that should be dictated by the state, Slaton’s bill points out that exposing children to sexually charged environments to which they cannot consent is not a harmless decision. It’s akin to taking a minor to a strip club, where age restrictions already exist.
There are plenty of other laws that tell parents what they can and can’t do. Virtually every state requires that they provide their children with some sort of education, for example. These laws don’t make the government a “nanny state.” Rather, they help the government fulfill its most basic obligation: to protect the innocent.
There is no evidence that gun control laws would do the same. In New York, for example, where a mentally disturbed shooter walked into a grocery store and killed 10 people earlier this year, the state’s red flag law should have prevented him from being able to purchase a gun in the first place. Unfortunately, this law failed.
The fact is that leftists are trying to draw a false comparison between gun control and proposed age restrictions on drag shows in order to divert attention away from a legitimate concern: the increasing exposure of young children to sexual content. California state Sen. Scott Wiener said he wants public schools to be required to offer “Drag Queen 101″ as part of their K-12 curricula. California lawmakers are also working to make the state a sanctuary for “gender-affirming care” (i.e. medical interventions such as puberty blockers and other hormone treatments) with bill S.B.-107.
Failing to legislate in these areas would guarantee that proposals like California’s, which represent a secular, progressive deconstruction of moral standards and protections for children, will win out. Conservatives can disagree on the way to go about addressing this threat, and leftists can dismiss our response as hypocritical, but legislators still have a responsibility to pass laws consistent with the Constitution, the rights it guarantees us, and the moral framework to which it is bound. Slaton’s proposal is a step in that direction.
Katelynn Richardson is a summer 2022 fellow for the Washington Examiner.
