Church Vandalized After Pastor Opposed Drag Queen Story Hour

A church in Chula Vista, California, was vandalized after its pastor openly criticized the city library’s decision to host Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) for young children.

Chula Vista police are investigating the graffiti on the exterior walls of the South Bay Pentecostal Church as a hate crime, reported KGTV.

“Sure enough, at every corner there were phrases, hateful words, and graffiti on the walls of our church,” Executive Pastor Amado Huizar said, adding “there is no doubt” his church was targeted.

Many of the symbols and messages sprawled on the walls were reportedly associated with Satan.

According to the KGTV report:

Huizar said the church’s surveillance system captured two men parking their sedan in the church parking lot at around 3:00 am Sunday and walking toward the building. Fifteen minutes later, they are seen jumping back into the car with what looked to be spray cans in their hands. Huizar has since filed a hate crime report to Chula Vista Police and asked for increased patrols.

Huizar has openly condemned the Chula Vista library system’s decision to host a Drag Queen Story Hour event at which men in drag read to young children.

The pastor said the event is not appropriate for young children and should not be funded by taxpayer dollars.

“If the people want to make that happen, do it at a private setting, at a book store or at a home, but not at the Chula Vista Public Library,” Huizar said.

The battle over the drag queen event intensified last week as an LGBT-activist member of the city council accused pro-family protesters of the events of holding “white supremacist beliefs.”

CBS8 reported, Steve Padilla, an openly gay, LGBT-activist Chula Vista councilmember, posted to Facebook that Drag Queen Story Hour protesters, such as the pro-family group MassResistance, hold “white supremacist beliefs”:

I am disappointed that some voices both from inside and outside our community have chosen to use the upcoming Drag Queen Storytime as an opportunity to perpetuate long discredited false and discriminatory narratives targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the name of protecting children. This is wrong and must be called out for what it is – the spreading of ignorance, fear, and hate. Much of this fearmongering is being organized by the local chapter of a nationally known hate-group which promotes not just anti-LGBTQ beliefs, but also anti-immigrant and white supremacist beliefs. These ideas and tactics do not reflect the community I love and serve.

“None of us hold anti-immigrant, white supremacist, or hateful beliefs of any kind,” said Arthur Schaper, organization director for MassResistance, in a statement to Breitbart News. “This is a tired smear from the pro-LGBT left to target and silence critics of this agenda, nothing more.”

The protesters rallied in front of the main branch of the Chula Vista public library to condemn the Drag Queen Story Hour scheduled on September 10. The library advertised the event as one that would encourage “reading, learning & inclusivity” among young children and “celebrate our wonderfully diverse community with stories, crafts and dancing.”

The library stated the drag queen event was “sponsored in partnership with San Diego Pride and South Bay Alliance.”

The American Library Association (ALA) encourages Drag Queen Story Hour events and is supporting those libraries experiencing “pushback” from their communities.

“ALA, through its actions and those of its members, is instrumental in creating a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive society,” the organization states. “This includes a commitment to combating marginalization and underrepresentation within the communities served by libraries through increased understanding of the effects of historical exclusion.”

According to the Drag Queen Story Hour website, the aim of the event is to present gender fluidity as a positive quality children should accept and even emulate:

Drag Queen Story Hour captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity in childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, and where dress-up is real.

Concerns about safety at the Drag Queen Story Hour events made headlines recently when Houston MassResistance discovered drag queen Alberto Garza, who uses the name Tatiana Mala-Nina when reading to young children, had been convicted in 2008 of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old boy. The Houston library system had failed to perform a background check on Garza or any of the other drag queens appearing in its programs.

Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon, also faced backlash when it was found the library system had quietly removed from social media photos of the Drag Queen Story Hour that took place at one of its libraries during which young children were lying on top of the drag queens and fondling their false breasts.

Huizar said, regardless of the vandalism to his church, he will continue to speak out against the drag queen events with young children.

The pastor said he is meeting Monday with Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas and plans to urge her to cancel the public library event and have it relocated to the private South Bay Pride Festival.

“I’m all about diversity. I am all about inclusiveness,” Huizar said, according to KGTV. “When you do something like a Drag Queen Story Hour, you are excluding a segment of the populous who are not in favor of this because of what we experienced today, or scared to speak out.”