Up in Bangor, Maine, at least parents can rest assured that in the local public schools, their children are learning about what’s really important. At Bangor High School, enlightened educators doled out $1,000 to a young man who calls himself Priscilla Poppycocks and dresses up as an exaggerated mockery of a woman. Priscilla Poppycocks enjoyed this payday for the hard work of regaling students with tales of “his life growing up gay in Maine.” As far as these learned administrators are concerned, it was money well spent: after all, young Maine residents will need to be well-versed in the religion of the state, don’t they?
According to a Fox News report Tuesday, Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) documents revealed yet another revolting episode of our age of absurdity: Priscilla Poppycocks, a drag queen whose real name is Dominick Varney, “spoke to Bangor High School students on May 4 as part of the school’s ‘Support, Educate, Empower’ series to ‘empower’ LGBT students.” The good news is that “the school confirmed to Fox News Digital that Varney did not attend in drag.” Hey, that’s terrific, but couldn’t Bangor High School have found something else to support, educate, and empower students about? Are our public schools now just one long advertisement for homosexuality?
The money that the school used to pay Dominic Varney was actually supposed to go for a different kind of propaganda. The dough came out of a $15,000 grant that the school received from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, which endeavors to “advance racial equity in public education.” Now, you might have thought that since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial inequality in education was illegal, stigmatized, and vanishingly rare. But don’t you see that you’re overlooking all that systemic racism that we need Critical Race Theorists to come point out for us?
The Nellie Mae Education Foundation explains: “We believe that applying a racial equity lens is essential for analyzing and solving problems that have endured for generations, impact individuals and communities of color most acutely, and ultimately affect ALL people, whether in other marginalized or privileged groups.” “Racial equity,” of course, means blaming white people for as much as possible, no matter how outlandish, and demanding special privileges for “people of color.”
That much is clear, but what’s not clear is how Dominic Varney’s presentation advanced those divisive objectives. Varney, after all, is white. Bangor, Maine is 88% white. And Priscilla Poppycocks didn’t show up to spread race victimhood propaganda. Fox noted that “in the 90-minute workshop, titled ‘Make Them Hear You,’ Varney discussed ‘growing up gay in Maine.’” The flier announcing the event enthused: “During our conversations together you will have some opportunities to experience some acting techniques and gain some first hand knowledge of how being different is the biggest advantage we all have to be successful in our lives. And most likely, you’ll hear him sing!”
Being different? Really? In 2023 in American public schools, nothing could be more go-along and conformist than being gay and learning from drag queens all about how to be “different.” Nothing could be more establishment than going to high school and not learning any math, or science, or (perish the thought) history, but instead gathering at the feet of a professional drag queen in order to hear about how stunning and brave it is to be homosexual, if not transgender.
And this was definitely an either/or situation: students who wanted to hear Varney were excused from class from 12:30 to 2 p.m., and indoctrination was very much the order of the day: Bangor High English teacher Emilie Brand Throckmorton, who no doubt spends a great deal of class time teaching pronoun fantasies, wrote to Varney: “I just know you are a role model for these kids, and we just want you to shine your light on them.”
The effect of this sort of thing is clear. The New York Post reported Monday that “the number of Brown University students identifying as LGBTQ+ has doubled since 2010,” and is now approaching forty percent. Tell kids every day of their lives that being homosexual is courageous and heroic, and you’ll get more homosexuals.
Yet one of the many problems with this is that over in China, Russia, and Iran, no drag queens are working in public schools to make new recruits. Only young people who are actually courageous and heroic are called courageous and heroic. One day, there will come a showdown between these two radically different visions of education, and of society in general. America is not likely to get the better of it.
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