Three Parish Council members illegally arranged votes outside of public view to make a controversial library appointment, Lafayette library advocates allege in a suit filed last week in district court.
Drag Queen Story Time
An invasion of politics imperils Lafayette’s public libraries
In a culture war attracting the national spotlight, activists have collided in an unlikely arena. Meanwhile, the library system’s once sterling financial health falters.
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Polarization is coming home to Lafayette
Our politics has historically been more personal than partisan. This election cycle will put that trend to the test.
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It started with Drag Queen Story Time
The energy to create PFLAG Lafayette, a new chapter of the national LGBTQ+ support organization, started when the culture war hit home last year. Just a short time after launching, the coalition is already making noise, forcing a public conversation about who gets seen and heard.
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Don’t call the Pride Month failure a setback, advocates say
Getting Lafayette to formally recognize Pride month would have been a win for the local queer community. Supporters say the loss stings but wasn’t quite unexpected.
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Robideaux’s scant campaign funds should tempt a challenger
The gist: Robideaux has about $43,000 in his war chest, according to The Advocate. At this point during his 2015 bid for office, he had $335,000. He’s widely seen as vulnerable to a challenge, a somewhat rare occurrence for an incumbent mayor in Lafayette.
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Robideaux says he’s been working, not campaigning. Side-stepping the implication that he can’t get the taps flowing. Indeed, it is somewhat early to draw anything conclusive from the numbers. We’ll see another report soon, and Robideaux told The Advocate’s Claire Taylor he expects to raise the money he needs in short order.
“To my friends in the media, thanks for the advice. I’ll get right on it,” Robideaux replied in a clapback posted to his Facebook page. (Campaign staffers often post on his behalf; it’s unclear if Robideaux authored the statement himself.) The mayor-president has been in a spat with the media lately, freezing out reporters who have been hard on him. He pushed back at the “criticism” and spun it as proof positive of his efforts as mayor-president. “The simple fact is (and a lot of people don’t get this about me) — I’m not a politician at heart,” the statement reads.
Lack of money doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of support, a local political operative tells me, rather a lack of campaigning. That backs up Robideaux’s defense. But the operative says it is indeed odd for an incumbent to have spent so little time fundraising. Articles like The Advocate’s, he says, raise reasonable questions of political strength. Put simply, whatever the reason, having no money in the bank shows a weakness that could tantalize opposition.
“He has not had an incident-free tenure,” UL political scientist Pearson Cross told The Advocate. He’s pointing out that Robideaux’s lack of ground game is odd given his recent controversies.
Saying his tenure is not “incident-free” is something of an understatement. In the last two years, Robideaux has found a way to alienate voters of all stripes. Progressives are angry about his escalation of the drama around Drag Queen Story Time and then trying to raid the library’s fund balance while accusing its directors of deception. Conservatives remain skeptical of CREATE, an initiative they characterize as a slush fund, and the cynical tactics Robideaux used to pass it. Outrage was community-wide upon discovery of his backchannel pursuit of privatizing management of LUS. Now his administration is mired in questions of ethics and transparency related to a suspect loan obtained by one of his aides.
In short, Robideaux has built a platform for his eventual challenger. And most believe he will draw one.
Drag Queen Story Time (sort of) happened with no flare up
The gist: Supporters held two private drag queen readings at a public library branch Sunday to muted protest and little else. Threats of violence and heavy protesting didn’t materialize.
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The scene was relatively uneventful. A few dozen families showed up for the readings, held in two sessions at the South Regional Branch of the Lafayette Public Library. Kids got their faces painted, held balloons, did the hokey pokey and listened to three drag queens read stories about tolerance. Outside, Catholic protestors prayed the rosary and sang hymns over bagpipes, holding signs with slogans like “Drag Queens = Childhood’s End.”
“If we allow the corruption of children to happen, then we are corrupted as well,” Thomas Drake, a protest organizer, told KLFY.
All bark and no bite is how Story Time organizer Aimee Robinson described the threats of violence that harried the event, most of which were on social media threads posted by local news outlets and Facebook page Lafayette Citizens Against Taxes. The library paid for several LPD officers to provide security. The three drag queens were escorted to and from their cars by the officers.
“They went above and beyond,” Robinson says of the officers assigned, describing them as kind, courteous and understanding. “I couldn’t be happier. My hat’s off to them.”
Supporters are calling it a victory. Sunday’s readings were not directly related to last fall’s library-sponsored event, organized in collaboration with an LBGTQ+ fraternity at UL Lafayette, that ignited controversy and drew a failed and spurious federal law suit. Robinson says it nevertheless took a lot to pull the readings off, which were originally scheduled in December.
“We had to get the ACLU involved,” she says. After the original library-sponsored event was canceled (crowd control/safety being the purported reason), Robinson and fellow supporters booked a room for a private, Christmas-themed reading. That effort was blocked at the last minute when attorneys representing the library and Lafayette Consolidated Government produced a room reservation form that effectively banned any drag queen-related events until the federal suit was complete. (The suit was dismissed last week.) The ACLU intervened and the library and city officials agreed to strike the reservation form, a clear First Amendment violation, paving the way for Sunday’s readings.
What to watch for: More readings and if the library ever officially hosts Drag Queen Story Time. Robinson says she intends to hold more private readings, potentially in Breaux Bridge. Many opponents say their issue wasn’t with DQST itself, but that the library sponsored and promoted the event last fall. The library had attempted to move that event from its Downtown branch to the South Louisiana Community College, where it was ultimately postponed amid security concerns. In a press release at the time, library officials committed to hosting DQST with the fraternity in the future.
Drag Queen Story Time suit officially dismissed
The gist: A spurious federal lawsuit filed to stop the library’s Drag Queen Story Time event planned last fall was formally dismissed Jan. 31. The court ruled the out-of-state fringe Christian organizations that filed suit had no standing.
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The ruling was long expected. A federal magistrate recommended the case be thrown out last month, saying plaintiffs Chris Sevier and John Gunter Jr. failed to show “dollars-and-cents” injury from the library’s organization of Drag Queen Story Time, given the pair live out of state and don’t pay local property taxes. Both Lafayette Consolidated Government (by way of Mayor-President Joel Robideaux) and the Lafayette Public Library (by way of Director Teresa Elberson) were named defendants in the suit.
Sevier, an attorney and EDM producer, is a litigious agitator on LGBTQ+ issues — same-sex marriage, transgender rights, etc. — and has filed dozens of suits on bizarre grounds across the country. His cases typically argue the LGBTQ+ community is in effect a faith ideology. Any government interaction, he claims, like issuing marriage licenses or promoting a Drag Queen Story Time, is tantamount to state-sponsorship of a religion, and thus a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause. He teamed up with West Virginia-based extremist Christian ministry Warriors for Christ to sue the Lafayette Public Library.
“By bringing this lawsuit, we are unapologetically and firmly defending the civil rights movement led by pastor Martin Luther King,” Sevier told News 15 last year. Sevier made national headlines for other legal stunts like suing Utah for the right to marry his computer and Apple for not preventing porn from ruining his marriage.
Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna was clearly exasperated with the case in December. He complained the court was “snowed in” by Warriors for Christ filings during a hearing on an ACLU intervention into the case on behalf of DQST supporters.
Drag Queen Story Time is back. Supporters have booked two private readings at the library’s south regional branch this Sunday. Religious groups and opponents have begun circulating information about it. Organizers say they expect some protests and have arranged for security. Sunday’s events are not directly affiliated with the program, planned by an LGBTQ+ fraternity at UL Lafayette, that sparked the last few months of controversy and attracted the attention of Sevier and Warriors for Christ.
That event was postponed indefinitely when a venue big enough to accommodate scores of sympathizers and protestors couldn’t be found.
Magistrate says Warriors for Christ and co. don’t have standing to sue library for Drag Queen Story Time
The gist: Affiliates of a fringe Christian organization, based out of state, sued the Lafayette Public Library to stop last year’s Drag Queen Story Time. A federal magistrate recommended the case be dismissed in an opinion issued this week.
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No standing to sue: That was U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna’s basis for recommending dismissal of the case, captioned Guidry v. Elberson. Hanna found that plaintiffs Chris Sevier and John Gunter Jr. failed to show “dollars-and-cents” injury from the library’s organization of Drag Queen Story Time, given the pair live out of state and don’t pay local property taxes, according to The Advocate.
Drag Queen Story Time was originally planned by an LGBTQ+ fraternity at UL Lafayette in cooperation with the library and with Library Director Theresa Elberson’s support. Libraries around the country have held similar events and have typically drawn similar controversy. Local activist conservative group Citizens for a New Louisiana delivered a petition signed by hundreds to LCG. Citizens was not among the parties that sued the library.
Hanna telegraphed this outcome last week during a hearing on an ACLU motion to intervene in the case. He groused that Warriors for Christ, a litigious group based in West Virginia, and its co-litigants had drowned the court with “thousands of meaningless pages,” referring to the volumes of filings poured into the court record.
After Hanna sought an out-of-court resolution on the intervention issue, the library and LCG attorneys agreed to throw out a controversial room reservation form following an in-chambers conversation with Hanna and the ACLU.
Local advocates, represented by the ACLU, challenged the library’s use of the reservation form that effectively banned Drag Queen Story Time events organized by private parties. Library and LCG attorneys drafted the form hastily to satisfy a “stand down” agreement with the court intended to prevent the library from organizing a DQST event while the suit was ongoing. ACLU attorneys argued the form was too broad and violated free speech rights.
A litigious bunch. Many of the named plaintiffs in the Guidry v. Elberson case are out-of-state, anti-LGBTQ activists known for filing frivolous lawsuits across the country.
Plaintiff Sevier, an attorney, has made headlines for legal stunts like suing Utah for the right to marry his computer and Apple for not preventing porn from ruining his marriage. Rich Penkoski, Warriors for Christ’s self-styled pastor, visited Lafayette last fall to protest DQST, at one point booking a room at the library in a bid to show the library had an anti-Christian bias.
Hanna’s opinion is not final. Robert Summerhays, the U.S. district court judge assigned to the case, will later issue a final ruling based in part on Hanna’s recommendation. The plaintiffs have 14 days to file an objection, according to The Advocate.
Legal pathway for Drag Queen Story Time wedges open
The gist: Library attorneys agreed in a federal hearing to strike a temporary ban on room bookings for private, drag queen-related events. A ruling in a federal suit filed to stop a library-sponsored Drag Queen Story Time event, which gave rise to the ban, is expected as early as next week; the case looks likely to be thrown out.
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No reservations. The ban was broad and infringed on First Amendment rights, argued attorneys for the ACLU in a Thursday hearing on a motion to intervene. Attorneys representing Lafayette Consolidated Government and the library drafted a special reservation form prohibiting private drag queen events in the library as part of a “stand down” agreement reached with the court in a federal suit filed against the library by fringe Christian organization Warriors for Christ. The agreement required that the library not formally present a DQST event while the lawsuit was pending. The form was drawn up after advocates pressed forward on a private, holiday-themed story time event at the Southside library branch in December. The library revoked the reservation the night before the event was scheduled to happen and issued the waiver form shortly thereafter.
“I’m sure they did the best they could,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna said of the attorneys’ intent in creating the reservation form. Hanna asserted the form was not a direct result of the “stand down” agreement with the court in the Warriors for Christ suit, saying he had not even seen the language. He said the form was “not any ill attempt to deprive anyone of any constitutional rights.”
Hanna asked intervenor Aimee Robinson directly if she could wait a few days for a court ruling on Warriors for Christ’s standing. He reasoned the ban issue would be resolved if the case didn’t go forward. Robinson responded that the library’s ban was a First Amendment violation, demanding an immediate fix.
“As long as the form exists, it does damage to the local gay community,”said Matt Humphrey, who filed the motion to intervene in the Warriors for Christ suit, along with fellow DGST supporter Robinson. Neither Humphrey nor Robinson were part of the fraternity that organized the original DGST event in the fall of 2018. The pair enlisted ACLU attorneys to file the motion asking the court to order the library to reverse the ban. Library attorneys agreed to kill the waiver following an in-chambers conversation with Hanna and the ACLU attorneys. Hanna dismissed the ACLU’s motion.
Thousands of meaningless pages. That’s how Hanna described the volumes of paperwork and motions filed by Warriors for Christ in its suit against the library. He complained that the court was “snowed in” by the case and noted the ruling on Warriors’ standing to file suit was around the corner. If the case is thrown out, that would open the door for the library to officially organize a Drag Queen Story Time event.
In an October press release, the library said it was “committed” to hosting the event in the future. Asked if that was still the case, a library spokesman declined to comment, citing the Warriors suit.
In making no statement on Drag Queen Story Time, the council sent a mixed message
In drafting the non-binding resolution on Drag Queen Story Time, William Theriot and Jared Bellard’s apparent intent was nakedly cynical: trap councilmen on a wedge issue as fodder for future politicking.
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Incivility in local politics
Despite the negative consequences to incivility in government, there are surprising and often ignored potential fringe benefits.
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