Town forced to move City Commission meeting to gymnasium. Pro-family city official resigns early because of uproar.
MassResistance parents make huge statement in a liberal suburb!
December 30, 2018
We really got their attention – even though they got the “California” part wrong!A pro-family revolt in Michigan has begun. Michigan MassResistance parents confronted the “Drag Queen Story Hour” targeting young children in Huntington Woods, an affluent, fairly liberal suburb of Detroit.
Our efforts were soon reported across Michigan by the Detroit-based media. As a result, hundreds of LGBT supporters converged on the Dec. 18, 2018 Huntington Woods City Commission to demand the event continue and intimidate parents opposed to it. Nevertheless, MassResistance parents came in and testified, unintimidated, and made their point loud and clear. The next day, the statewide media storm continued – reporting MassResistance’s opposition!
Local parents – even a City Commissioner – upset at targeting of children
As we have previously described, so-called Drag Queen Story Hours (DQSH), held mostly in local public libraries, target small children as young as 3 or 4 years old. They feature homosexual men dressed in women’s clothes and garish make-up reading LGBT-related books to children. Their self-proclaimed goal is to program children’s minds – to “give kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models” and to encourage young children to “defy rigid gender restrictions.” They do this through the actual storytime events, and provocative posters in the library.
The Huntington Woods public library has been sponsoring Drag Queen Story Hour sessions for over a year. The program has offended many local parents, but they’ve felt powerless to do anything about it.
It even bothered one of the City Commissioners. On Nov. 17, 2017, when the library began the events, she wrote a passionate email to the librarian asking that they discontinue them. Even though Commissioner Allison Iversen admitted to being pro-LGBT, as a mother she felt that targeting young children was crossing the line. In her email, she shared what many parents felt: “Young children should not be exposed to topics their little undeveloped brains are not yet ready to process.”
Commissioner Allison Iverson, a mother, was the only public official with the common sense and courage to do what was right.
Commissioner Iversen also objected to the outrageous advertising for it in the children’s section of the library:
For those of us with children of reading age…we can opt to not attend the event, but we can’t ‘opt out’ of our children reading the flyers lining the bookshelves. I’d rather not be forced to explain what an “unabashedly queer Drag Queen” is to my younger two children.
Nevertheless, the library officials basically ignored her and continued their regular “Drag Queen Story Hour” events with the accompanying posters and advertising.
Outrage among parents continued to build up, and by early December 2018, the newly formed Michigan MassResistance chapter decided that they would help local parents take this on. National Organization Director Arthur Schaper talked about it in a striking interview with the national Catholic group Church Militant, which is based in Detroit.
When the library advertised the Dec. 13 Drag Queen Story Hour as being a “Pre-School Program,” we decided it was time to move forward.
The ad for the Dec. 13 Drag Queen Story Hour event. They are very open about “queering” the minds of children.Taking tough action!
Our Michigan chapter bombarded the Huntington Woods City Commission, City Manager, and the library to cancel this program. They sent out emails, made phone calls, and even passed out flyers informing the public about this program. At one point, Michigan MassResistance activists contacted the city manager, who had initiated this program. She said she was determined to protect this program and no plans to change it, but also indicated that if residents in the city opposed the program, the city would reconsider it. So we pushed even harder!
When Commissioner Iversen got our emails, she emailed us back:
Thank you for your comments, I have been trying to get this stopped since it started. Please do get more people involved. I am one voice and we need many people to call this out for what it is….unfortunately I will be leaving my commission position this month….I will be addressing at the next Commission meeting [December 18] in my final comments.
Allison Iversen
She also spoke with some of the MassResistance people about dealing with the outside left-wing groups pressuring the town to keep it, and points she could make at the Dec. 18 Commission meeting. We had announced that parents would protest at the January 26 Drag Queen Story Hour event. We decided to have Michigan MassResistance parents also come and testify at the December 18 Commission meeting to support Iversen, and continue to let the other officials know that there is definitely outrage about this.
The media firestorm erupts
The barrage of calls and emails to the Huntington Woods City Commission caught the attention of the Detroit media.
On Dec. 16, two days before the Dec. 18 Commission meeting, the Detroit Free Press, Michigan’s largest newspaper, started it off with an article, Critics want Huntington Woods Library to end Drag Queen Story Time.
Not surprisingly, most of the article portrayed the Drag Queen event as a “pioneering library children’s hour” that is a near-universally popular event. Only Commissioner Iversen and MassResistance seem to oppose it, the article said, and that MassResistance would be protesting on Jan. 26, 2019.
Interestingly, the article also described how a “gay” library employee was notifying the LGBT community:
[Part-time library clerk Jon] Pickell, who said he is gay, worries about backlash to the program which has developed a loyal following from Huntington Woods and surrounding communities. He alerted others to a round of emails and flyers floated by groups opposing the drag queen story hours.
The next day, Dec. 17, more mainstream media outlets jumped on the bandwagon. Their reports continued the theme of describing the Drag Queen event as a healthy, popular event. They got a pro-LGBT City Commissioner to praise it and to condemn the “haters” and “hate groups” who would oppose it. When they interviewed Commissioner Iversen, she stood her ground. And Arthur Schaper of MassResistance didn’t back down when interviewed, either.
Here’s some of what people saw:
Fox TV-Detroit: Critics demand end to Drag Queen Story Time at Michigan library – 12/17/18
WXYZ TV-Detroit: Controversy surrounding drag queen storytime at metro Detroit library – 12/17/2018
Michigan Radio NPR: Anti-LGBTQ group targets Drag Queen Storytime at Huntington Woods library – 12/17/2018
Royal Oak Tribune: Group targets Huntington Woods over library Drag Queen Storytime – 12/18/2018
LGBT activists plan to converge on the Dec. 18 meeting
When dealing with local governments, one of the most common intimidation tactics of the LGBT movement is to pack a meeting room with rabid activists. We’ve seen it dozens of times. They’ll bring in people from across the state, and even from other states.
They’ll bring in “experts” to testify. And there’s a core of hardcore activists and generally weird people who interrupt pro-family people testifying, whenever possible. It’s almost always done with collusion with one or more of the local public officials.
This is what they had planned for the Dec. 18 Huntington Woods City Commission meeting: Tto intimidate Commissioner Iversen, who had said she’d speak against the Drag Queen events, and to make sure the rest of the Commissioners got the message.
The City Commission obviously had been informed of this beforehand. They moved the meeting to a local high school gymnasium where there was much more space for the activists.
But MassResistance realized that it’s critical for pro-family people to stand up to those sleazy tactics.
The Dec. 18 City Commission meeting – a close-up view of LGBT activism
Ironically, the subject of “Drag Queen Story Hour” was nowhere on the agenda of the Dec. 18 Huntington Woods City Commission meeting. But a casual observer would have thought it was the main item that night!
Commissioner Allison Iversen wisely decided to skip the meeting entirely. Why put up with that kind of planned abuse? (It was her last meeting, anyway – since she is moving to another town.) But MassResistance parents were there to carry the ball.
It was pretty much what we would expect. About 200 hostile LGBT activists from across eastern Michigan filled the room. Several had signs supporting the transgender agenda. (See the entire video here.)
When the “public comments” section of the meeting started, they were all ready. Dozens of them delivered very emotional, inane rants. But it was well planned: they brought in three county district attorneys who mouthed the Drag Queen party line (one with anti-Catholic overtones); a psychologist who said that “gender dysphoria” is not a mental illness, parents who praised their “transgender” children, pro-LGBT parents and teens who talked about how wonderful these programs are for families, various weird activists, and of course, a parade of men dressed as women who testified about how normal they are.
The obvious common thread, though was the visible hatred they had for those who disagreed with them. Their name-calling was incessant; pro-family parents are bigots, transphobic, or haters, and they smeared MassResistance as a “hate group.” In their testimony, some expressed an emotional anger that they weren’t able to scream at Commissioner Iversen personally. That is very common; they cannot win a rational argument, especially on a bizarre topic like this, so they must de-humanize their opposition.
When one of our people tried to testify, this is what he faced from the “tolerant” LGBT crowd.These are the people who want to teach your young children about life. They are the real haters, and they are truly frightening people.
Maybe the most nauseating part was that at the beginning and again at the end of the testimony the Mayor and City Commissioners took turns praising “drag queens” and the Drag Queen children’s event – and attacking the critics of the program.
The remaining City Commissioners and Mayor (center, in black) were a cowardly disgrace.What’s more shocking, however, is that these liberal parents are more interested in virtue-signaling to their neighbors rather than protecting their own children. They become desperate to defend a lie in the name of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion. In doing so, they demonstrated how intolerant and un-diverse they actually are.
Michigan MassResistance parents stand up to them!
The LGBT hooligans did their best to intimidate and silence any opposing viewpoints. But our side really made a statement – without fear – which seemed to both anger and intimidate both the LGBT audience and their allies on the Commission.
Here is a sample of the comments from two MassResistance parents and two other local pro-family people:
“Vulnerable children are easily becoming victimized by the ideologies of adults. My concern is that this function is an enshrinement of gender dysphoria, which is a duly defined mental illness unfortunately suffered by individuals who have this disorder. It’s an illness that requires compassion.”
“When it’s in a public institution, and it’s taxpayers money, I have a problem with that. I think children have enough exposure to bullsh-t nowadays with this trangenderism and everything else. I don’t think our children should be exposed to this type of learning, OK? Not on my dime! [This brought screams from the LGBT crowd.]”
“People with my point of view are being totally ignored. Our city manager went on television to say that the only people who are opposed to this are a hate group from out of state. Everyone knows that letters have been received from months ago objecting to the program. Mrs. Iversen didn’t come up with this idea herself—members of the community have brought it to her.”
“You notice what they [the LGBT activists] have to do. They have to talk you down. They have the hate. I don’t have hate.”
And the second media storm afterwards!
The fact that pro-family people were facing down the powerful LGBT movement got the media going again! Nobody ever sees that anymore, apparently, and Michigan MassResistance came in to change that.
Here’s a sample of the reaction from the liberal media:
Fox 2-Detroit: Heated debate ensues over Michigan library Drag Queen Story Time – 12/18/2018
WLWT TV-Detroit: Critics Say Public Library’s ‘Drag Queen Story Time” confuses small children – 12/18/2018
Detroit Free Press:Huntington Woods debate: Kill of keep library’s Drag Queen Story Hour? – 12/19/2018
Michigan Radio Deadline Detroit: Huntington Woods Commissioner Against Drag Queen Story Time Resigns Amid Backlash – 12/19/2018
MassResistance made another big difference!
Change often happens in steps. It is one thing to be fighting something that is a matter of rational disagreement, such as when is the best time to introduce algebra in math class. But in these kinds of irrational, completely unhinged situations it often starts by overturning the apple cart.
In a very meaningful sense, Michigan MassResistance had a great victory! Simply standing up and telling the truth fearlessly – and making demands on the basis of that truth – is a vitally important start. Liberals aren’t used to that at all.
The LGBT Movement often relies on big numbers to scare and intimidate opponents so that they will not to show up or say anything. That did not work this time. Homosexuals and their abusive allies are not interested in changing minds. They are only interested in shaming and silencing dissenters. Those tactics were on display at the December 18, 2018 Huntington Woods City Commission meeting, and they failed.
At the outset of the City Commission meeting, the Mayor announced that they had alerted public safety personnel to “protect” the library from ongoing protests on January 26, 2019, when the Huntington Woods library will be hosting the next Drag Queen program. The sheer terror of these elected officials is pretty astounding, when all that Michigan MassResistance parents are doing is protect children from this perverse indoctrination.
As we announced earlier, the Michigan MassResistance team is prepared to protest and continue placing pressure on the Huntington Woods city commission, staff, and library to cancel this program. We will eventually be successful.
We will keep you informed about our Michigan team’s progress!
The State of the Union 