Julaine Appling And Wisconsin Family Action Get A Drag Queen Smackdown With The Help Of Dan Savage and John M. Becker

Julaine Appling

Out there is Wisconsin, there’s a woman named Julaine Appling, president of one of those friendly sounding hate groups, this one called the Wisconsin Family Action. The WFA is, of course, “anti-LGBT, anti-choice, pro-‘intelligent design’ GOP’ group and they got their granny panties all in a twist recently because the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley was going to have a drag show.

A drag show? What? Men dressed as women? Sound.The.Alarms!

And they took to their website—I won’t post a link, but if you follow the smell you’ll get there—warning their readers about the drag show ::::gasp:::: that featured, and I quote, the “self-proclaimed male homosexual transvestite ‘Shangela’ from a lewd reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race‘ in which homosexual male drag performers compete for prizes.” And then they called the show “propaganda” and a “display of immorality.”

I’d call it fun! Can I get a Halle-loo?

Then Julaine Appling added:

Our University of Wisconsin System is placing the stamp of approval on homosexual propaganda and explicitly immoral content with an upcoming “drag show” event that sends the wrong message to our next generation of leaders, parents, and families. Taxpayers should beware, and quickly take action to defend our shared values.  The Badger State’s standards for it’s families are much higher than this shameful display of sexual immorality on our campuses and in our local communities.

She gave her readers, er, maybe reader, the contact information for the UW-Fox Valley Dean’s Office, so they, or he or she, can call and complain about a drag show. Appling mentioned that just last month, another Wisconsin University held a drag show and apparently the entire school burned to the ground and everyone there disappeared off the face of the earth. Or some such. I paraphrased because I hate to let too much of the crazy seep into my head.

And, with nothing else to report on—no sequester, no new Pope, no global warming, no wars—a local Fox affiliate [naturally] sent a reporter out to interview Appling and one, yes, one, UW-Fox Valley student who said drag shows are “contrary to her religion” and that she “would feel uncomfortable seeing it.”

Um, honey, it wasn’t a requirement. You don’t have to see it. I’d suggest more time studying since you have a rather loose knowledge of what the school is about.

[Sidenote: We know Julaine Appling hates The Gays. In fact, she crafted Wisconsin’s voter-approved 2006 constitutional marriage discrimination amendment, and the WFA sued, albeit unsuccessfully, to block implementation of Wisconsin’s domestic partnership registry, which provides a very limited set of basic protections to same-sex couples in that state. But, and this is where it gets kinda interesting:  Appling is in her 60s and has never married and apparently owns her home with a woman named Diane Westphall, another never-married WFA bigot. Appling claims she’s straight, but, well, just sayin’]

Meanwhile, back at the drag show controversy …. It seemed that only a few tickets had been sold for the drag show and looked like it might be cancelled, and Appling and Westphall might be doing their happy We Hate Gays dance in the privacy of their own home, until …. Dan Savage.

John M. Becker [l] and Dan Savage [r]

See, Dan Savage read a Tweet from John M. Becker, the author of the story [see Part One HERE and Part Two HERE] and Dan reTweeted the story to his 140,000+ followers, and then added that he wanted to help UW-Fox Valley sell out the show.

So he did. Dan Savage bought all of the remaining tickets to the show and then donated them back to the school to give out free to any student who wanted to go. And they did, and I’m guessing Appling and Westphall postponed their We Hate Gays dance and, instead, ate Lean Cuisine in front of the TV, possibly while watching The L Word.

Again, just sayin.

Thanks, though, to John M. Becker for blogging the story, and to Dan Savage for picking it up and running with it. And, as Shangela often says, Can I get a Halle-loo?