Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was considering sending Child Protective Services against people exposing children to drag shows.
DeSantis was asked about proposed legislation about children at drag shows during a media briefing on Wednesday.
“We have child protective statutes on the books. We have laws against child endangerment,” said DeSantis, who added that his staff was looking at the law.
He went on to reference “disturbing” videos from a drag show performance at a bar in Dallas, Texas, that showed children shoving dollar bills into the underwear of drag performers.
“Part of the reason why we fought the fight with Parents Rights in Education is because there’s a movement to interject these things like gender ideology in elementary schools even, and my view is, our school need to be teaching these kids to read and write and add and subtract, and do the things that are supposed to be done in school,” DeSantis continued.
“Injecting these agendas into it is wrong, and that’s why we did the Parent’s Rights and Education bill,” he added.
Videos and images from the drag show event in Dallas outraged many on social media. Others on the left defended the incident and accused critics of bigotry and prejudice against alternate lifestyles.
“It used to be kids would be off-limits. Used to be everybody agreed with that,” DeSantis continued. “And now it just seems like there’s a concerted effort to be exposing kids more and more to things that are not age appropriate.”
He concluded by saying Florida needs to be a “family-friendly state” and received overwhelming support from those attending the briefing.
DeSantis is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024 unless former President Donald Trump chooses to run again.
Here’s more about the drag show debacle:
Gov. DeSantis Weighs In On Drag Show Controversy www.youtube.com