When Republicans Say They Want to Protect Children, Don’t Believe Them
Here are a few of the things the Republican Party is prepared to do to protect children. The Republican Party — in states like Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kentucky — is prepared to ban or strictly limit the public performance of drag and other gender-nonconforming behavior. “This bill gives confidence to parents that they can take their kids to a public or private show and will not be blindsided by a sexualized performance,” Jack Johnson, the Senate majority leader in Tennessee and one of the sponsors of the state’s ban, wrote on Twitter. “I can’t think of anything good that can come from taking children and putting them in front of a bunch of grown men who are dressed like women,” said Gary Stubblefield, an Arkansas state senator who wants to enact a similar ban there.
The Republican Party is prepared to ban or strictly limit discussion of L.G.B.T.Q. people and identities in public schools, as well as transgender health care for minors, to protect them from what they say is manipulation and abuse. “We don’t want parents to be abusing their children,” said Shay Shelnutt, an Alabama state senator whose bill to restrict teaching and ban care was signed into law last year. “We don’t want to make that an option, because that’s what it is; it’s child abuse.
This is just to protect children.” The Republican Party is prepared to extend this circle of protection to discussions of race and American history in public schools — so-called critical race theory — to protect students from guilt, shame, discomfort and any other negative emotion. “Critical race theory is a divisive ideology that threatens to poison the American psyche,” Dan Bishop, a state representative in North Carolina, said, when he introduced the Stop CRT Act in 2021..
