Kirk Cameron attracts protesters in drag for kids’s guide studying at Arkansas library

Kirk Cameron drew one other massive crowd and a few protesters at a studying of his youngsters’s guide in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the newest cease on his nationwide library tour providing an alternative choice to drag queen story hours.

Lots of of oldsters, youngsters and supporters arrived Friday on the Fayetteville Public Library to see Mr. Cameron learn his Christian-themed youngsters’s guide “As You Develop,” printed by Courageous Books, as did a cluster of sign-carrying demonstrators, some wearing drag.

“We wished to be a lightweight for the youngsters which are right here and would possibly really feel ostracizing in their very own household,” “Sister Annie Philaxis,” a member of the drag group the Hillbilly Harlots, informed 5News.

They had been outnumbered by enthusiastic dad and mom like Mandy Brooks, who mentioned that she and her youngsters got here to see Mr. Cameron as a result of “we love these Courageous Books, we love our nation, and we simply wished to return right here and be a part of what he’s doing.”

This was the sixth cease by Mr. Cameron on the Freedom Island Tour, launched earlier this 12 months after Courageous Books mentioned that greater than 50 public libraries rejected or ignored requests to host the well-known Christian actor, regardless of sponsoring drag queens readings for kids.

Mr. Cameron mentioned afterward the occasion drew a “small group of protesters, which included some grown males carrying foolish make-up, wearing skirts and heels, pretending to be girls.”

Courageous Books estimated that about 500 folks attended the youngsters’s studying.

Exterior the library, a few dozen protesters waved indicators and did chalk artwork on the sidewalk. No incidents had been reported.

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“In coming to Fayetteville, Arkansas we anticipated to get a ton of supportive Christian and conservative households to indicate up,” mentioned Courageous Books chief of employees Zac Bell in a press release. “What we didn’t count on was for a bunch of drag queens and activists to attend and stroll up and down the occasion giving the youngsters in attendance the creeps.”

Showing with Mr. Cameron was Laura Perry Smalts, creator of the 2019 guide “Transgender to Reworked,” an account of how she turned to Christianity after spending 9 years dwelling as a transgender man.

She learn “Elephants Are Not Birds,” written by Ashley St. Clair and printed by Courageous Books, which “teaches youngsters that boys aren’t women and elephants aren’t birds.”

Ms. Perry Smalts mentioned the guide reveals “that although the elephant, Kevin, wished to be just like the birds, the city wanted him to be an elephant and he turned a hero. I feel this guide has a superb message for kids.”

She requested the youngsters within the viewers, “Do you assume elephants might be birds, even when they strap on foolish wings and a beak?”

“In unison, and with nice laughter, all 300 youngsters confessed with gusto, ‘No!’” mentioned Mr. Cameron in a press release afterward. “I felt unhappy for the boys in skirts. As it’s written, ‘You may have taught the little youngsters to reward you completely. Could their instance disgrace and silence your enemies.’”

Along with studying his guide, Mr. Cameron, the previous teen star of ABC-TV’s “Rising Pains,” led the group in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the nationwide anthem.

That didn’t sit effectively with at the least one of many protesters. Clint Schneckloth, pastor of the progressive Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, referred to as the occasion “overwhelming and much weirder and scarier than I had even imagined it might be.”

“That they had the group sing the nationwide anthem AND say the pledge and the loudest applause all through the occasion was for nationalist/patriotic stuff much more than the Christian crap,” mentioned Mr. Schnekloth in a Friday submit on Fb.

Courageous Books founder Trent Talbot accused the drag queens of searching for to “pressure disturbing views on these harmless youngsters.”

“The left’s predatory conduct is simply one other conspiracy idea uncovered as a truth,” he mentioned.

Courageous Books canceled plans for a Sunday studying that includes Mr. Talbot and Chaya Raichik, higher referred to as Libs of TikTok, in New York Metropolis, citing safety considerations.

The occasion was meant to compete with the Drag Story Hour Learn-A-Thon hosted by New York Lawyer Common Letitia James and different state Democrats on the Lesbian, Homosexual, Bisexual & Transgender Group Heart in Manhattan.