Hurry moms and dads – there’s still time to take your kids to Wichita this weekend to see a Halloween drag queen show paid for by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, Lt. Governor David Toland and their Kansas Department of Commerce – oh, and your tax dollars.
Are your kids only toddlers? Even better, because the flyer for the show strictly acknowledges it’s an “all ages” event. Right next to that great big logo for the KDOC.
The chance to realize this benefit from your tax dollars is right in line with the KDOC’s slogan under Toland’s leadership as commerce director: “The State Of Unexpected.”
Yes, indeedy. Can’t argue that one.
Of course KDOC money directed to the event brings tons of public policy questions. How many of the performers’ costumes will be made of authentic Kansas deer and bison hide or Sunflower State-grown hemp products? Are the state permits required for production of those goods all current and in good standing? Will the personal “contour prosthetics” used in various locations under the performers’ costumes exhibit the Land of Kansas label? Will there be an artistic zenith when two performers rip off their masks to climactically reveal they are actually Toland and Kelly themselves?
Unfortunately I didn’t get any answers when I called Kate Van Steenhuyse, the interim director of the Kansas Creative Arts & Industries Commission, which was the funding and administrative channel for the event. As of yesterday she was going to have to get back to me.
At this point maybe it’s time to back up, provide some background and recap. So, for those of you not versed in the expansive world of queer culture, a “drag queen” is a dude (man), usually a gay man, who, as a side gig, dresses up as a woman and “performs.” Performing can be singing or dancing or maybe encouraging “tips” via negotiable federal currency placed strategically within the confines of his garments while he’s on the move. “Performances” often entail sexual poses and pantomime, but rarely feature talents like lion taming, playing an oboe solo or being fired out of a cannon.
In recent years “woke” moms (moms who for some reason think they can’t earn their badge of suburban tolerance unless they have at least two gay friends, a latte twice daily and embrace a wide array of perverse human sexual oddities as long as none of them chip their pedicures) have become enamored with drag shows as a means of exposing their young children to and encouraging them toward the modern liberal Holy Grail of “diversity.” Because when you’re on the ferry to Goofball Island with Kelly, Toland, and the rest of the country’s extreme Leftist crew, “diversity” is the life raft that saves you from an ocean of responsible parenting and sound judgment.
So, when conservatives start hollering about their fears of the grooming of children toward these perverse lifestyles and the modern day encouragement of children suffering gender dysphoria to “trans” themselves into some macabre living mannequin of the opposite sex with irreversible sexual surgeries, you can see the threat is actually quite real. And in Kansas, it’s supported by those running as Democrats for Governor and Lt. Governor.
This is the political “middle of the road” and the “centrist” disposition Governor Laura Kelly and her administration are working so hard to sell Kansas voters in the waning days of the 2022 election. This is how she “works with people across the aisle” – of course it helps if those people are dudes wearing Cinderella Pumps with live goldfish in the water-filled aquarium soles.
It’s a stark reminder who Kelly and Toland really are; that her claims of “governing from the middle” are a fable. Remember that Kelly twice vetoed a Kansas bill that would have made it illegal for biological men to compete in women’s sports in Kansas high schools and colleges?; remember Kelly torpedoed the Kansas economy to the tune of billions of lost dollars when she shut it down based on faulty facts, and we haven’t recovered yet; Remember that if not for Republican legislators she’d still be requiring you to wear a mask statewide that does no good whatsoever?
That tax dollars and/or state government efforts went into promoting sexual deviance to our children is reprehensible. Kelly and Toland should both resign before Kansas voters throw them out.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
