Pope Francis is well known for advocating in favour of an approach of welcome and closeness to people who identify as LGBT+. He has done this on a number of occasions and in different contexts - in-flight interviews, response to LGBT+ persons when he meets them, correspondence with Fr James Martin. It is not possible to accuse him of advocating a hateful attitude towards an LGBT+ community.
However, in his most recent in-flight interview he distinguished this approach of welcome towards persons from "groups" and "lobby". And he has also spoken over the years of an "ideological colonisation of the family".
Story time certainly isn't over for Aida H Dee , the Drag Queen and founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK says "hateful" protesters need to "get a job" instead of turning up at their events.
The Drag Story Hour UK consists of Drag Artists reading books to children across the country, in nurseries, libraries and museums. Aida’s aim is to ensure that children are given the opportunity to listen to stories that are diverse and inclusive of all people. They want children to have positive LGBTQ role models, something Aida says they didn’t have growing up.
Aida H Dee, the drag persona of Sab Samuel who founded Drag Queen Story Hour UK, says that most protesters don’t know what they’re protesting over. "They think they’re protesting against gender ideology and the concept of LGBTQ being out on children in some way," Sab said. "Kids have always been gay and trans and queen and non-binary, kids were always a part of the LGBTQ community, even before they knew it themselves."
The above is taken verbatim from an ITV News website report: "They should get a job" : Story time drag queen hits back at protestors". The accuracy of their reporting of the quotations attributed to Sab Samuel/Aida H Dee can be verified from the video clip included in the report.
The last sentence quoted above does express an ideology, what I think Pope Francis would recognise as an "ideological colonisation of the family". It is reasonable to expect that not all families will want their children to take part in an event such as this, which clearly has an intent with regard to LGBT+ ideology.
As Sab Samuel/Aida H Dee suggests in the video clip, the idea of drag artists telling stories to children has been around for a long time - Christmas pantomime is in some ways its typical manifestation. But it does now seem to have gained an ideological intention that would have been absent from those earlier expressions, when a drag act would not have been identified as an expression of an LGBT+ identity.
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