▸ The gist: Dozens crammed into Tuesday’s council meeting to voice support for Drag Queen Story Time, a reading event promoted by the public library that Mayor-President Joel Robideaux apparently sought to cancel in a statement. Robideaux’s statement, also issued Tuesday, came after days of conservative outrage registered with his office and across social media channels.
▸ Drag Queen Story Time? Programmed by a provisional chapter of a national LGBTQ fraternity at UL, Drag Queen Story Time is itself a national phenomenon and is pretty much what it sounds like: men dressed in drag, reading to children. The Lafayette Public Library regularly schedules story time events. The fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi, arranged to host one on Oct. 6 as special guests. The idea is to promote inclusion and tolerance by providing kids an encounter with people who look different. What appears to have triggered social conservatives on the issue is the library’s promotion of Drag Queen Story Time as a recommended event in the library’s monthly brochure.
▸ 23 spoke in favor in Drag Queen Story Time. 1 spoke against. There was some expectation that enraged conservatives would pack the event, given the story’s viral distribution on social media and the outrage registered on pages like Lafayette Citizens Against Taxes. Louisiana Family Forum, the state’s premier evangelical advocacy group, sent out newsletters calling the event a “clear attempt to advance a hyper-sexual agenda” and asking Forum supporters to thank Robideaux for “taking a stand.” Despite the furor, only one speaker, a pastor who noted links in his remarks to the Louisiana Family Forum, spoke in opposition to Drag Queen Story Time.
For more than two hours, supporters took to the council’s podiums, sharing stories of personal abuse, castigating Robideaux’s statement and exhorting tolerance and inclusion as local virtues. One speaker called for Robideaux to withdraw his statements and apologize. Early remarks drew choruses of applause, which Council Chairman Kevin Naquin quelled, he said, for the sake of moving things along.
“I appreciate this hatred, because it has shown me how amazing Lafayette is,” said Bonnie Barbier, a supporter dressed like a hermit crab. She also apologized if her appearance confused any children into thinking she was actually a hermit crab.
▸ This was a strange hill for Robideaux to die on. Few would accuse Robideaux of taking sides in most controversies, a tendency that’s caused some to question his leadership style. He’s avoided weighing in substantively on some big issues in the last year — tax measures, the push for a Lafayette City Council, for instance — but he waded headlong into the city’s latest culture war flare-up. His remarks are dissonant with his ambitions to put Lafayette on the map as a progressive and forward-thinking community that’s attractive to tech companies. Headlines suggesting the mayor-president shares the concerns — or fears the wrath — of social conservatives undermine, if not contradict, the message he’s trying to send the world.
▸ Neither the council nor the mayor have direct authority here. They can’t technically cancel Drag Queen Story Time, or any other library program for that matter. But the library’s Board of Control, which has political appointees seated, could pressure library staff to do so. Robideaux’s statement calls for a review of the library’s programming process, which seems to be the limit of his power here. The council could theoretically pass a resolution condemning Drag Queen Story Time and officially requesting its cancellation. We know of no such effort.