From Drag Queens to Death Threats: How Republicans Enabled Violence Over Lancaster's Drag Queen Story Hour

When a story hour becomes a battleground for community values, Jesse White takes you through the tumult of Lancaster County's clash over Drag Queen Story Hour. Following the chilling bomb threats that led to the cancellation of the event at Lancaster City Library, we find ourselves dissecting the intersection of free expression, public safety, and the fissures of local politics. 

Amidst the uproar, County Commissioner Josh Parsons' inflammatory suggestion that the bomb threats may be a "false flag" stirs the pot, challenging us to confront the perils of such dangerous rhetoric. This episode peels back the layers of political opposition, revealing how it can morph into outright dehumanization, and underscoring the complexities of tracking anonymous threats in our digital world. Despite the initial fear and disruption, Jesse forecasts a resilient rebound for the story hour, predicting its return with heightened resolve and spotlight, reminding us that understanding and solidarity are the keystones of our community fabric.

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Drag Queen Story Hour Controversy Keystone
• 16:18 Controversy Surrounding Library Bomb Threats

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

If you're really worried about story time and a story that isn't appropriate for children, maybe you shouldn't be the one writing it. Hello and welcome to the Keystone Reckoning podcast for Tuesday, march 26, 2024. I'm your host, jesse White. Obviously, the big news story today that we all woke up to was the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. They are still searching and trying to pull people out of the frigid waters of the Chesapeake as we speak. Obviously, there will be a lot to talk about in terms of repercussions and policy and politics and everything, but obviously that is not something that we want to talk about while people's lives are still in danger. So we're going to put a pin in that and just watch, like everybody, and hope and pray that the losses are as minimal as they can possibly be. So let's turn to today's topic, which is the massive story that has come out of Lancaster County and the city of Lancaster in particular, regarding the Drag Queen Story Hour and everything that happened as a result of it.

Speaker 1: 1:39

For those unfamiliar with the story, the Lancaster City Library was hosting a Drag Queen Story Hour, much like has been held in other communities, other states. It's a simple, straightforward event for anybody that wants to come out and for as the for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, the Lancaster Public Library sponsored a drag queen story hour that was going to be held on March 23rd. It was sponsored by Lancaster Pride and they described it as, quote, a wonderful time to get the community out, queer, folks, allies, just to get everyone together and spend some quality time enjoying some stories, fellowship, just an overall fun time. Pretty straightforward, open to the public. Anybody that could show up wanted to show up. Anybody and this is an important part of it anybody that didn't want to show up didn't have to show up. Don't forget that part. So that was what the event was about.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Of course, and this is why, if you don't know the political makeup of Lancaster County and I've mentioned this before I've spent a lot of the last two campaign cycles 22 and 23, working in Lancaster County on various races down there. So I got to know the political makeup of the area fairly well, which gives me some insight into kind of what happened and why. None of this of what happened next is surprising for those who are unfamiliar with the area. Lancaster County itself is, for the most part, very red, very Republican there's, but inside of that you have the city of Lancaster which is literally a 180. It's very progressive, very Democratic, but they're kind of an island in a Red Sea and it is trending.

Speaker 1: 3:25

There are other areas around there Manheim Township, places like that that are trending blue and I think Lancaster County is really kind of a bellwether for a large portion of Pennsylvania. It really politically reminds me of a lot of the counties in southeastern PA, the color counties around Philly, like Bucks, montgomery, and I think in 10, 15 years you're going to look at that as a. Lancaster County is a much more purple slash blue area. Lancaster County is a much more purple slash blue area, but it's not there yet. One of the main reasons why there is so much political clashing going on there comes from young Nazi on the make, josh Parsons. He's a county commissioner and he is clearly navigating for higher aspirations in everything he says and does, which this story will very clearly lay out. So when news of this drag queen story hour came out, parsons felt the need to chirp up and give a take that nobody was asking him for.

Speaker 2: 4:34

And here's the clip of that right now I'll let you hear his voice chirp up and give a take that nobody was asking him for, and here's the clip of that. Right now, I'll let you hear his voice. This is forcing politicized, woke ideology onto a library. This is an effort to basically take an organization that's supposed to be neutral and inject it into the political sphere. I think that's why they're doing this, and you know we don't want that in this community.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Okay, so let's break down what was said there. He clearly is condemning the event. He's accusing the organization of being political, which, right there, you know, in order for you to believe anything that happens next, you have to accept the premise that a drag queen story hour is a democratic event. Right Like that. It's somehow associated with the Democratic Party or the Democratic politics. It's not. Obviously this was done by the public library, which can sponsor events of all kinds. So, and they work with a nonprofit in Lancaster Pride.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Now, this is not the first time that Parsons has taken shots at nonprofits and community organizations. There is a long history of this, to the point where he's actually gone in and stripped contracts away from city nonprofits that were providing services for the county and then move those like no bid contracts out to other entities outside of Lancaster County to provide lesser services at a greater cost. I know that because I did the opposition research when I was working down there, because I did the opposition research when I was working down there. He's the guy that is literally making everything political. Everything he does is political. And then he also likes to hide behind the fact that he was a veteran. You know that thing where he's a veteran, ergo he's a greater patriot than you'll ever be, and anything that he says is the gospel, literally the gospel. He's the worst of the worst, placed to the lowest common denominator out there, as evidenced by what he said about this. So you have this drag queen story hour. Parsons comes out and to a lesser extent the other Republican, commissioner, ray D'Agostino, but Parsons was the one out there throwing political bombs and I use that word deliberately and not in any way joking because of what happened next.

Speaker 1: 7:01

So story hour was then canceled because a suspicious package was found at the library and bomb threats were emailed threatening the event, referencing the library and the home addresses of the library's executive director, the president of Lancaster Pride and Dan Neffin, who is a journalist for LNP, which is Lancaster Online. And Lancaster Online is the paper of record in Lancaster County and I have to say, having dealt with them, they're phenomenal. They are One of the single best news organizations, especially in this day and age of shrinking local news coverage. They're really, really good and they Lancaster County is lucky to have them they are fair, but they actually go after the stories and they hold people accountable. They have some wonderful reporters, editors I've dealt with many of them and I've never come away disappointed. I've always come away impressed, so, ok.

Speaker 1: 8:04

So you hear, you hear threats, right, and you're like, ok, somebody emailed a threat. What does that look like? Well, it's interesting. Dan Neffin, the reporter, was, gave an actual description of what was in. He read the email on a WITF program and this is this is his quote. It says, quote we are the ones that place bombs at the Lancaster Public Library.

Speaker 1: 8:33

We will kill Tiffany Shirley, the head of Lancaster Pride. We placed a bomb in her home and the home of Lissa Holland, who's a library executive director. She's just an employee, by the way, the executive director, she's an employee. My home, neffin's home Starbucks in Lancaster, lancaster online office. At 1.30,. The bombs will detonate. Bring the fire department. We place pipe bombs as well as fuel Bombs will likely cause a fire spreading to other buildings. Evacuate, so no innocents die spreading to other buildings. Evacuate, so no innocents die.

Speaker 1: 9:04

You are exploitive, degenerate, pedophiles, child abusers or expletive. You know whatever the word was they use cowards who rather let our children get preyed upon than be called a bigot Blank. You degenerates. We will kill you all and purify our land. What Like for real, that is no joke, right? You hear the phrase oh, there were threats set. That is very specific. We will kill you. We are going to kill individual people. We are going to kill people that are just doing their jobs the reporter, the executive director of the library. We will kill you and your family and presumably your children, if your children are there. We are so worried about protecting the children that we are going to kill your children. That's where we're at. They would rather see dead children of these innocent people than having kids go to drag time, drag queen story hour. That's the logic, or lack thereof. That's what we're dealing with.

Speaker 1: 10:00

So then, on top of that, the police found a suspicious package at the library, and it turned out it was a package from like the USDA, containing coloring books and some other things, but it set off the bomb, sniffing dogs, for whatever reason. Yeah, they said that. Look it was. You know it could be. The dogs can pick up on a lot of different things, but you know, for example, if it had been handled by someone, who would also handle the gun or whatever. But like he said and he's right, you know when a dog alerts you, you just call the bomb squad and, given what those emails said it was by no email said it was by no stretch, uh, a, a, a far, it was no stretch. To think that this was could very easily have been a bomb. Right, it was no joke. So that is all horrible, objectively horrible in every sense of the word. So then, and to me though, it's almost not the worst part of it. So then, of course, storytime, drag Queen storytime gets canceled, obviously, right. So mission accomplished for the people trying to disrupt it.

Speaker 1: 11:10

By the way, hundreds of people had signed up for it, and it was, you know, a lot of people followed suit in the lead that Parsons had led had said in order of challenging and calling it unfit for children. This was a statement issued by state reps David Zimmerman, keith Grenier and Tom Jones. Quote as state representatives in Lancaster County, we are strongly opposed to the Lancaster Public Library using taxpayer dollars to sexualize our young children by bringing in drag queen story hour. This is totally political and immoral use of our money. Read the joint statement. And then it ends with and this is almost like too cliched quote we need to protect our children.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Again, they were the ones making it political. They made it a political issue because apparently the First Amendment like, just isn't a thing whenever it comes to something they don't like. You know it's so funny these Republicans talk about, you know, oh, everybody's so thin skinned and everybody's a snowflake. You know for being critical sometimes, but like this wasn't. These weren't being snowflakes, these guys are being. They were a blizzard because they are. They were so thin skinned. But let's call this what it really is. They don't give a damn about anything. They just said they did it because it was good pandering politics for the folks back home.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Like I said, josh Parsons, young Nazi on the make, this guy is just the biggest piece of garbage you're ever going to come across in politics and they just can't any time they can get in the paper to push their garbage and take something that was apolitical and make it political. That's what they're going to do and that's exactly what they did here, right, it's exactly what they did. So they go out and get everybody all worked up. They actually even held a prayer vigil the night before. At the prayer vigil, the people there asked God to stop the event, but didn't call for violence, which I guess we're supposed to be thrilled about. But that is the dance that's happening here, right, parsons and these other people come out and they condemn it and they make it this huge deal.

Speaker 1: 13:24

And then the people out there and we've seen this, it, you know, this is, you know, the January 6th mentality. This is everything else. They get everybody worked into a lather. It's a what it is. It's a call to arms. Right, this was a call to arms. And guess what happened? Somebody picked up the arms. Somebody said we're being called into service, our militia and I'm not saying that, you know, it was an actual militia, but it's that mentality, right? Oh, it's go time, boys. We got to act. Save the children. How do we save the children? Blow up a bunch of buildings where children will be. We're not dealing with the smartest people here, but Parsons and Zimmerman and Grenier and Jones and Bag of Steel, they knew exactly what the hell they were doing. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Speaker 1: 14:12

So then, of course, people's lives were threatened. Reporters lives were threatened. And, by the way, going back to Lancaster Online, parsons has had a long, a very nasty relationship with Lancaster Online, and to the point where I've always thought he kind of did the thing that Trump did, where he accused them of being so mean to him that they almost had to be more reasonable to avoid an image of a perception of impropriety. I'm going to guess that that's probably not going to be happening quite so much. And now that one of their reporters lives, were threatened and their office was threatened, where everybody worked there.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Because of what was said next and this is the part that is just absolutely unbelievable Okay, josh Parsons, on his social media, everywhere else, had said well, march 14th he says you know that this was a very simple issue, despite efforts by activists to distract, misdirect and misinform. That's what he said, like on March 14th, like 10 days before the event was supposed to happen. And it goes on. I'm not going to read any more of his garbage. You know what we're talking about here, but that's what you know. That's how he framed it right. Like as soon as this became a thing, he was like oh, I'm going to jump on this and make it a thing. Okay, now, let's so. Then obviously you've got everything that happened In the meantime. Just I'm reading through what happened to Lancaster's just to give you an idea of what the commissioners are working on. They passed a resolution saying that Lancaster County is a non-sanctuary county because, obviously black and brown people in their minds are brown people are the problem, right, that's. You know. That's what they view the problem as, not the people that are threatening to blow up buildings and kill children. Okay, but whatever, that's a story for another day. So here's the here's what he says. After the bomb threats. This was two days ago, so this was March 24th. So the day after this, this was what he says. After the bomb threats. This was two days ago, this was March 24th. The day after. This was what he said.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Quote Sheriff's Office personnel, county emergency management agency personnel and other county assets have been involved in the Lancaster Public Library situation, including dealing with apparent bomb threats that have been made apparent. I read you what they said. I don't know how you could take that and think that it was an apparent bomb threat. That's about as explicit as it gets Back to his quote. We continue to monitor the situation and provide assistance. Yeah, because you've been so much help so far, please keep assisting, says the Bend Park as well Plaza area that's where the library is is well covered with cameras and law enforcement can trace phone calls and communications.

Speaker 1: 16:57

It is my hope and expectation that the perpetrators will be quickly caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Wait for it, because here we go. This is true regardless of whether they actually oppose the Drag Queen story hour or they support it and are seeking to create outrage against those who oppose it. The consequences should be the same and extremely serious. Threats of violence have no place in our debates. Dude, you can just go and F all the way off.

Speaker 1: 17:30

You are now doubling down and pretending, alleging that this was a false flag done by supporters to I'm not even sure to what end, seeking to create outrage against those who oppose it. Dude, you already created the outrage, josh Parsons. You created it, you perpetuated it. There was a freaking prayer vigil, which, by the way, nobody threatened to blow up. The prayer vigil Should just be noted. Just a thought apparent bomb threats.

Speaker 1: 17:59

It says the area is covered with cameras and law enforcement. Well, I think we can acknowledge that the bomb. There were no bombs actually placed right, so that's not going to do anybody at this point. You know they're going to find a delivery guy dropping off about a package of coloring books, right? They're not going to find anything there Now tracing the email?

Speaker 1: 18:17

Yes, that is. I'm sure there are people doing that. I'm quite certain that is not a priority for the county, given what the leadership of the county looks like. You know not that. That I mean it's a law enforcement issue and I do believe law enforcement will do it. I also would be willing to bet that they're never going to find the person because, theoretically, emails can be traced, but there are enough ways out there, using VPNs and anonymous email servers, and there are a lot of things you can do and I'm sure someone that made threats that explicit knew enough to cover their tracks to some extent. I'm not saying they'll never find the person. I'm saying it will probably be exceptionally difficult and I would be really surprised if anybody was found out. Now, I think if they do find them, I think bringing them to justice, I think we'll probably have them, but just the odds of it happening are very low.

Speaker 1: 19:05

So what happened was Josh Parsons got exactly what he wanted, and not just Josh. All of his you, you know, fellow whatevers got exactly what they wanted. They got the event canceled. So they saved the children, right. They protected the children, they delivered to their, they preached to the choir, right. They literally got the exact thing they wanted. They are heroes to their people, and that's the problem.

Speaker 1: 19:35

These people like this they don't. They play such little value on not just the ideas and the principles, but the people who believe them, that not only are they willfully ignorant towards those people and their needs and their rights, but they will go out of their way to risk serious bodily injury and death in order to make themselves look better to their people, because in their minds, those are the good people, those are the only ones that matter. It's such a big problem in our politics now and it really is something that can go back to to maga, which is we don't disagree on policies. Now it becomes so personal in that they they have dehumanized anybody that doesn't agree with them. They flatly dehumanize them. So when something like this happens, the calls for violence don't matter, because the victims deserve it. In their minds, they deserve it. That's what we're dealing with, because here's the thing If they really didn't want this to be a thing, you know what they do.

Speaker 1: 20:45

You know what Josh Parsons should have done Kept his damn mouth shut. This became a national news story. That event is going to happen at this at some point. I don't know. I don't know the details, but I, you, you can be sure that it will happen and it will be a much bigger deal, because they elevated the issue. They elevated the story, they made it. They made it an issue by opposing it, by enabling the violence, by infuriating everybody, not just with everything that happened, but by then coming back and accusing the people that wanted the event to happen or didn't care about the event, by accusing them of a false flag operation. That's what they did. They did what they set out to do. So there, you wanted a story. There's your story. Doesn't it have a happy ending? I don't know. I hope so, but we definitely know who the villain is and we definitely know, at this point, who the victims are. Thank you for listening. This has been the Keystone Reckoning Podcast. I'm Jesse White. No-transcript.