Drag Queen Storytime leads to protest outside Lawrence Public Library
LAWRENCE – A press release from The Lawrence Times informed readers of Deja’s Reading Rainbow, a free drag queen story time for young children in celebration of Pride Month. Lawrence, a strongly blue city, has hosted Deja’s Reading Rainbow for the past seven years. However, this year, more conservative individuals began speaking up.
A leaked email from Brent Hoffman, the Douglas County GOP Chair, informed the local Republican Party of Deja’s Reading Rainbow.
“Not only is this celebration of gender confusion an assault on the innocence of children, but it is funded by your tax dollars. If we do not protect children, who will?” Hoffman wrote.
He continued, by stating, “Calling the library and letting them know how you feel about this would be ideal. Importantly, a growing group of concerned citizens are gathering to protest this event in front of the library on Sunday, and you are welcome to join. If not us, then who?”
Over 35 people showed up to protest. Hoffman did not show up.
“I’m really pleased at the turnout for the protest,” Lawrence resident and protestor Michelle Eagleman said. “It’s a very loosely organized word of mouth kind of protest. We’ve got people here from Kansas City, Topeka, and Lawrence. Just various groups, so, it’s a concern of a lot of people. There’s been rosaries, there’s been prayers, there’s been singing, although we didn’t have any ugly incidents.”
Eagleman held a sign that said, “TAX-FUNDED GROOMING.” Another protestor held a sign that said, “God didn’t get it wrong. There are only 2 genders.” The other protestors did not hold signs, rather standing in a circle outside the public library singing and praying.
Inside the public library, at the start of Deja’s Reading Rainbow, silent protestors had peacefully entered the room. When Deja Brooks began to welcome the crowd, which included over 30 children, the protestors stood up with small signs, making their presence known. One of the protestors was Dr. Justin Spiehs, a man known in Lawrence for protesting masks on children as well as for running as a Republican for Douglas County Commissioner District One. Violent leftists routinely attacked and threatened Dr. Spiehs throughout his protests and campaign, including one incident where a man pulled a gun on him. However, Lawrence news sources The Lawrence Times and Lawrence Journal-World seem to hold a strong left-wing bias as they would never cover such events despite being informed of them. At the public library, he held two signs. One that said, “STOP GROOMING KIDS” and another that said, “THIS IS WRONG.” His friend, Sue Herynk, also held a sign that said, “DEJA IS A Soul-Less Parasite.”
The silent protestors were told to leave. While Deja tried to continue, one adult yelled at the protestors that were leaving, “Lame as f**k,” despite the fact that their were small children in the room.
“We planned to come out here a couple of weeks ago,” Dr. Spiehs said. “We were going to go and actually sit in during the rainbow reading with our signs that were voicing our opinion on this as we think it’s wrong. So, we went in their today with our signs… and they told us that we were being a distraction and we got escorted out of there, otherwise they would call the police for trespassing.”
We reached out to the executive director of the Lawrence Public Library, Brad Allen to get a better understanding of why he thinks a drag queen story hour is appropriate. He told The Kansas Constitutional via email that they believe it is important to reflect the diversity of the human experience through their story times, especially when it comes to representing “underrepresented” and “marginalized” communities.
“As part of this effort, it is important to us to provide a storytime that acknowledges and celebrates our local LGBTQIA+ community and LGBTQIA+ communities at large,” Allen wrote. “Deja Brooks is a popular local performer and has worked with the library for many years.”
Allen also stated that, aside from the story time including and supporting LGBTQIA+ families, Deja’s Reading Rainbow can best be summarized as “a storytime about love and friendship, being different and belonging, being unique and being accepted, colors, rainbows, and, of course, fun!”
We also reached out to the Lawrence City Clerk to see why they were allowing tax dollars to be used for a drag queen story hour. They did not respond by the time of this publishing.
During Deja’s Reading Rainbow, Deja sat in a colorful dress reading books about being yourself while engaging the audience with questions such as “Do we have any guitar players in here?” and “Who enjoys art?”
The event ended with arts and crafts where children were able to make a paper rainbow wind spinner.
The public event can be viewed here.
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Ian Brannan
Ian Brannan is an independent journalist who founded The Kansas Constitutional in April 2022. His work focuses on issues including abortion, Convention of States, drug policy, education, government, LGBT issues, media, and more. He is also the co-host of the Rainbow Rabble-Rousers podcast.
