Republican gubernatorial hopeful Tudor Dixon, alongside a smattering of Republican lawmakers, convened on the Capitol steps Thursday to announce legislation that would ban drag queens from schools and allow parents to sue a district should it violate such a law.
That’s despite the fact that, when repeatedly asked by reporters, none standing to speak on the bill could point to an instance of this occurring in a Michigan school.
“We see the radical policies coming in from the Democrats and the liberals, and we have to protect against the culture war in our schools,” Dixon said. “So, today we’re here to fight that culture war. To make sure we don’t have drag queens in the classroom.”
It was unclear what her purpose for being at the event was, as lawmakers said the Dixon campaign did not bring forward the idea for the bill. She was, however, thanked for using her status to bring light to the issue and be an advocate for children and families.
Under the bill, which has yet to be assigned a number in the legislative system, a new law would be created that would make it so that the board of a school district or intermediate school district could not host, present or display to students a “drag show or drag presentation.”
It would also bar the school from exposing “the pupils, in any other manner … to a drag show or drag presentation.”
What constitutes a drag show or presentation was not defined in the bill.
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Rep. Ryan Berman, R-Commerce Township, lead sponsor of the bill, acknowledged that while the definition for drag is not included in the legislation, “we can deal with some of these questions through the hearing process.”
“Schools should focus on the basics. Schools should focus on teaching our students how to think, not what to think,” he said. “They shouldn’t be used for political or cultural ideology, grooming, oversexualization.”
As for an enforcement mechanism, the bill allows the parent or legal guardian of a student enrolled in a district to bring forward civil action against a school should that institution host, present or display a drag show or drag presentation.
Damages, if awarded, could range anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000.
Impetus for the bills seem to be from joking comments made by Attorney General Dana Nessel who earlier this month called for there to be “a drag queen for every school” in response to continued attacks on drag performers and their profession. Nessel, the state’s first openly gay person elected to statewide office, has long decried attacks on drag performers and the LGBTQ community as being fake, wedge issues.
When asked about her comments in relation to the bill, however, lawmakers said this idea predates Nessel’s comments. They also added that the bill is part of a larger package that has yet to be unveiled along with the creation of an informal work group of state representatives to work on like issues.
When pressed on if this was a genuine issue schools were facing, Berman said that the Reform Jewish synagogue Temple Israel in West Bloomfield had hosted a drag queen story time for children to attend. While a Facebook event for that does exist, the drag queen story time was hosted in January 2020, and it is unclear if that event has occurred again since.
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But while synagogue does teach classes, it considers itself a religious institution, the story time in question was hosted in conjunction with the Detroit-area Jewish library group, PJ Library. In that light, this bill would not bar Temple Israel from continuing to pursue such an activity.
That example aside, none of the other lawmakers present could cite a specific example of what this bill seeks to ban occurring. That didn’t stop Rep. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain, from quipping: “I don’t know that we’ve ever had strippers brought into the classroom, either.”
“I don’t think that we need to have a problem occur in the state of Michigan before we address it,” he said.
Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, also added that if a drag queen had never been brought into the classroom before then it should not be an issue to prevent the issue from ever happening, saying: “I still don’t understand why we would say there’s any response other than zero minutes of school time should be devoted to drag presentations.”
In response to the bill’s unveiling, Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson Rodericka Applewhaite said in a statement panned the move as being for show and lacking substance.
“The only drag we see here is her wrong-for-Michigan agenda that would harm our economy, infrastructure, public schools, and reproductive freedom,” she said, of Dixon. “Michiganders deserve solutions to the issues that matter to them, not divisive attempts to distract them.”
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