MassResistance Organization Director on Laura Ingraham Show!
Uneasy Start, Sudden Cut-Off Leads to Massive Attention
and Support for MassResistance
In previous posst, MassResistance reported on the efforts of our Texas
and Houston MassResistance chapters to stop another Drag Queen Story Hour, this
time in Leander Texas, a conservative-leaning suburb of Austin, Texas.
When our activists found out that the Leander public library
was hosting their own Drag Queen Story Hour, they hammered the Leander, Texas
city council. They received an overwhelming number of negative calls and emails
demanding that the city cancel their Drag Queen Program. When a local
“progressive” church took over the event and agreed to host it privately, more
of our pro-family forces assembled to protest and to end the program.
News of MassResistance's efforts against Drag Queen Story Hour program
reached national networks, including the Fox News Network, Laura Ingraham
specifically. Within a day, she contacted our Waltham, MA main office to invite
a spokesman on her program to discuss Drag Queen Story Hour, specifically our
opposition to it.
Arthur Schaper, our Organization Director, took up the
challenge. He had spoken for MassResistance on other programs, including
InfoWars as well as writing for Barbwire, Townhall.com, and other publications.
Arthur relates the rest of the experience below.
The Program
I had never participated in a debate or discussion on
national television before, including the Fox News Channel. Even though the new
channel touts its reputation as “Fair and Balanced”, our main office had
concerns about Arthur’s appearance on the Ingraham Angle with Laura Ingraham.
Ingraham’s brother is openly gay, for example, and there is
a growing recognition that the Fox News Network by and large is either pro-gay
(one of their news anchors Shep Smith is gay) or simply refuses to discuss and
confront the LGBT Agenda on its network programming.
I was prepared for anything. When the producers in Washington
DC informed me that this was going to be a debate over Drag Queen Story Hour, I
was prepared for a combative clash of ideas.
I arrived at the LA-area news studio about an hour early,
which gave him a chance to tour the facilities and take a few photos:
I received few instructions, aside from being told that I needed to focus on Drag Queen Story Hour.
The opposing guest, the man who supports allowing homosexual
adult entertainers to read to children, Jonathan Merritt, a pro-gay Christian author.
The “Discussion”
Ingraham began the brief segment with a segue, describing
the Drag Queen Story Hour event in Leander, Texas:
INGRAHAM: When Leander, Texas, a
city of 56,000, decided to put an end to this, citing upset citizens, a
leftwing church known as Open Cathedral stepped in to hosted the event this
weekend. So what happens there? Joining me now to debate is Arthur Schaper,
director of Mass Resistance, and Jonathan Merritt, a progressive Christian
writer and author of the book "Learning to Speak to God from
Scratch." All right, Arthur, what is your group's main objection to these
drag queen story hours that are popping up all across the country?
Arthur candidly admitted afterwards that he did not watch
the Ingraham Angle regularly. Therefore, he had no real idea how the debate
format works on her program. He was combative from the outset:
ARTHUR SCHAPER, DIRECTOR, MASSRESISTANCE:
Thank you again, Laura, for having me on the show. My name is Arthur Schaper.
I'm the organization director for Mass Resistance. We are the international
pro-family group that makes the difference. We have had parents contacting us all
over the country about these perverse programs. The bottom line is this. You
have adult homosexual men, adult entertainers going into a public library
reading to children. That alone should not only be setting off alarms, but
people should be demanding this to be canceled even before it starts. We're not
talking about diversity. We are talking about deviance. We're talking about
perverse and destructive lifestyles being animated or advertised to children as
if it's normal. You can just look at the website itself.
I was clear about the problem with drag queens reading
to children—adult entertainment is not acceptable around young people. Period.
I was not content with focusing exclusively on that issue, but wanted to bring
out the fact that this was a subversive means of normalizing LGBT behaviors and
ideas.
Ingraham took offense when I mentioned “adult
homosexual men”, and stated:
INGRAHAM: Wait, wait, hold on,
Arthur, are you saying that gay people can't read to kids ever? We're talking
about a very specific issue with drag queens. That's what we're talking about
here, so try to keep it focused on that issue.
With all due respect to Ingraham, I had done exactly
that, and so I continued:
SCHAPER: We're talking about drag
entertainment here, drag entertainment. This is adult illicit entertainment, to
put it mildly. And we are having these entertainers reading to children? Why
stop there? why not have poll [sic] dancer story hour? How about having
porn actor story hour. This is just nonsensical.
In the next brief segment, Ingraham asked the progressive
Christian author to justify allowing drag queens to read the children. I admit that I intermittently criticized his remarks, and Laura had to ask me to wait my turn. Looking back on this part of the “debate”, I recognized that there
really was no need for me to interject remarks. Mr. Meritt’s attempts to
justify Drag Queen Story Hour lacked “merit”, to say the least. His defenses of
the program were weak and laughable.
Then Laura allowed me to wrap up this very brief
segment:
INGRAHAM: Arthur, close it out
quickly.
SCHAPER: There are normal ways to do
this. We are not talking about knitting. We're not talking about a Bible class.
We're talking about degenerate, perverse entertainment. And not only that, not
one but two sex offenders were exposed at one drag queen story hour in Houston,
Texas. That is what our organization revealed. Mass Resistance, I'm with the
California chapter. If you want real reading –
Arthur holds up copy of
MassResistance book
“The Health Hazards of Homosexuality”
At that point, I brought up a copy of MassResistance’s
famous, controversial tell-all book exposing the full extent of the health and
societal problems with LGBT behaviors. I had intended to segue from the book
to stating that this is the kind of reading that needed to take place in libraries. But Laura cut me off and refused to let me
continue.
INGRAHAM: Don't hold up props.
Here's one thing I don't like on this show, when people bring props. OK?
This criticism was unexpected for me. No one in the Los Angeles
office had told Arthur that he could not have an item to bring up and show the
audience. Also, it seemed strange that Laura took exception to my bringing
up MassResistance’s key book exposing the LGBT Agenda and the dangers
associated with those behaviors, but earlier in the segment she had promoted
her other guest’s book. Why the double standard?
SCHAPER: This is what people should
be reading to understand at length what's going on with this whole agenda.
In this last segment, the public got a better glimpse as to
what was Laura Ingraham’s thought process about the segment:
INGRAHAM: OK, I got it, I got it.
This is not a segment or promote one particular a group. We are trying to
figure out what is really going on here. People have legitimate concerns on
both sides of this issue. What is the point of doing this with kids? Is there a
point? That's what we are trying to find out tonight. We wanted to have a
really good conversation. We appreciate it.
For me, the statement that
really troubled me from Laura Ingraham was ‘People have legitimate concerns on
both sides of this issue.’ What?! There is no legitimate defense to allow drag
queens, adult entertainers, in a public library to indoctrinate children to
embrace destructive behaviors, lifestyles, and ideas!
Frankly, can there be any legitimate defense to allow
illicit, sexually explicit adult entertainers into a library to read to
children?
(For the full
transcript of the discussion about Drag Queen Story Hour on the Fox News
Channel, click
here.
For the full video,
click here.)
Response: Massive Support and The Overwhelming, Left-Wing
Backlash
After the recording, the MassResistance main office shared
concerns with Arthur about his performance on the program. Arthur conceded that
he didn’t get to share many of the crucial points which the public needed to
hear about the underlying agenda connected with Drag Queen Story Hour. He also
recognized the fact that he interrupted the other guest. However, many people across
the country watching the interview (
and who followed Arthur’s
YouTube Live feed afterwards) appreciated what Arthur did.
A number of viewers were grateful that Arthur spoke out
against the LGBT Agenda forcefully and without reserve. They actually liked
that he was not afraid to make the case with the title of the book “The Health
Hazards of Homosexuality.”
Many supporters were quite critical of Laura Ingraham, in
fact, instead of Arthur. Reviewing the interview, it seemed that Ingraham was
only committed to giving that part of the program five minutes tops, hardly
enough time for a robust discussion on a contentious issue. Viewers were also
very critical that she cut Arthur off just as he was talking about the two sex
offenders who were participating in the Houston, Texas Drag Queen Story Hour
earlier this year. Many others also said that Ingraham has a long-standing
habit of interrupting her guests, not allowing them to finish their comments.
One MassResistance activist in San Diego, California even
suggested that Laura was caught off guard. She realized in the midst of the
broadcast that she was ill-prepared to discuss the whole drag queen story hour
phenomenon, and her lack of preparation frustrated her.
The positive comments have been coming in every since. Of course,
having Arthur mention and speak up for MassResistance on national television is
a big victory for our pro-family fight!
As expected, the backlash from the left-wing, pro-LGBT press
was immediate. But their vehemence about Arthur stating the obvious—that
homosexuality is hazard to one’s health—brought out even more vitriol from the
left-wing media “watchdogs”!
Even more conservative leaning reports on Arthur’s
appearance were not exactly charitable:
One part of the report suggested that the writer was more
sympathetic to Arthur:
"All right, I got it,"
Ingraham said, rolling her eyes and cutting off both guests as it became
apparent Schaper was not going to put down his book [italics added].
Ingraham brought on the guests to
discuss whether or not "Drag Queen Story Hour" which was being held
in various libraries and bookshops in Texas was a good thing.
In an epic first, major newspaper the
New York Daily News featured an article slamming MassResistance following
Arthur’s appearance on the Ingraham Angle:
More people have been requesting
copies of “The Health Hazards of Homosexuality” since that show, as well.
Twitter had some interesting
comments, too, the usual left-wing LGBT pablum:
This tweet was unique, in that the
post reported what Arthur said and did accurately!
Arthur’s appearance on the Laura
Ingraham was a huge victory for MassResistance. Our efforts are expanding all
over the country—and the world—and the press, both conservative as well as
liberal—is starting to notice.
Two weeks ago, Arthur had
published an article faulting the more conservative media for not taking a firm stance to report accurately and
criticize the LGBT Agenda. His appearance on the Ingraham Angle gave him the
opportunity he and the rest of the MassResistance team had long hoped for to
get this debate about limiting and delegitimizing the LGBT Agenda in the larger
culture and society as a whole.
MassResistance is not only making the
difference, but is forcing the larger mainstream media culture to pay
attention. The regressive left—the media, the institutions, and the activist
groups—are getting worried as they realize that our direct, confrontational
approach against the LGBT is working, changing minds and saving lives.
