Jefferson City has once again immersed itself in faux controversy. This time, some Republican legislators are sounding the alarm about drag shows that are supposedly corrupting Missouri’s youth. The topic is so silly that even top legislative Republicans are trying to shrug it off, but that didn’t prevent last week’s spectacle of a committee-hearing showdown between lawmakers and drag queens in full costume.
The image would have been amusing if not for the fact that Missouri has serious, unaddressed problems that these lawmakers continue to ignore while engaging in this obvious attempt to inflame the Republican base over yet another non-issue.
Drag shows — performances in which men dress and act like over-the-top gaudy women — are typically comedic rather than sexual. But radicalized Republican politicians here and around the nation have seized on them alongside other non-issues like racial- and gender-related curriculum in schools.
