Council forced to spend $42,000 on extra police to protect one drag queen story time event from protestors
96 police officers were brought out to protect the drag queen story time event. (KUSI News)
Chula Vista city council in California was forced to pay out $42,000 to increase police presence at just one drag queen story time library event because of ongoing protests.
The spending figures were released via a Freedom of Information request by MassResistance, an organisation described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) as a “anti-LGBT hate group”, which says it works to “confront assaults on the traditional family, school children, and the moral foundation of society”.
The $42,000 was split between the regular wages of the 96 members of law enforcement and paying for the collective 305 hours overtime of 81 of the police officers.
Director of MassResistance, Arthur Schaper, said that the spending showed that the pro-LGBT+ demonstrators who came to defend the event were the dangerous group.
Schaper wrote on his blog: “The need for this was NOT because of any danger from the MassResistance parents – but because of the angry, unhinged mob of LGBT counter-protesters who came there to harass them.”
However, Chula Vista council member Steve Padilla told NBC San Diego: “They should be outraged at themselves and we should send MassResistance the bill.” He aded that anti-LGBT+ group had “riled people up”, which was why increased police presence was necessary.
According to the SPLC, MassResistance has also protested similar drag queen story time events at libraries in Colorado and Michigan, as well as California.
The organisation has published a book called The Health Hazards of Homosexuality, and Schaper previously described drag queen story time events as the “subversive introduction of an agenda which promotes homosexuality, transgenderism, transvestism, and other paraphilias”.
Earlier this year, South Bay Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista was vandalised with “satanic” graffiti after it strongly opposed a a drag queen story time event at the same library.
The senior pastor at the church joined MassResistance in protesting the event. Another pastor from the church, Amado Huizar, told ABC News: “I’m all about diversity. I am all about inclusiveness. When you do something like a drag queen story hour, you are excluding a segment of the populous who are not in favour of this.”
