NBC News has defended a ‘Drag March’ in New York City, where revelers chanted “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.” American conservatives reacted to the parade with disgust and condemnation, but the network claimed that the apparently pro-pedophilia chant was “taken out of context.”
Video footage shot at the NYC Drag March on Friday shows a crowd of colorfully dressed drag queens and revellers walking through Manhattan’s West Village, with some chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going shopping.” However, a number of participants reworded the classic LGBTQ rallying cry, adding the reference to children.
Some participants also held signs reading “groom CISsies,” with “CISsies” being a reference to people who are not transgender.
The clip triggered an outcry from US conservatives, many of whom have previously accused transgender activists of “grooming” children at “all ages” drag shows and pride parades.
NBC News addressed the controversy on Wednesday, explaining in a lengthy article that “The 'coming for your children' chant has been used for years at Pride events, according to longtime march attendees and gay rights activists’.”
Citing a host of gay activists, the broadcaster claimed that the chant is “one of many provocative expressions used to regain control of slurs against LGBTQ people,” and that conservatives and concerned parents were “weaponiz[ing] an out-of-context remark to further stigmatize the queer community.”
NBC did not elaborate on what the proper context for such a chant might be, and the network was slammed by conservative pundits and right-wing activists.
“'We’re coming for your children' is a threat, and you do not get to pretend otherwise when people treat it as such,” journalist Mark Hemingway wrote on Twitter. “‘They want to rape your kids’ went from being a homophobic conspiracy theory to an MSM-endorsed longstanding tradition of gay rights history in record time,” another commenter wrote.
Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis referred to the parade at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “You start coming for our kids? We’ve got problems,” he warned. “And we are gonna stand up for our kids.”
NBC’s article also noted that the NYC Drag March is organized by the Radical Faeries, which it described as “a loose-knit LGBTQ collective.” NBC did not mention, however, that the Radical Faeries was co-founded by Harry Hay, a member of the pro-pedophilia North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).