These legends blasted out ABBA songs like “Dancing Queen” to drown out a crowd of aggressive anti-LGBTQ+ protesters outside a drag show
Over 100 people gathered outside Hamburger Mary’s, an LGBTQ+ friendly restaurant in downtown Houston, on Sunday (July 10) to counter an anti-LGBTQ+ protest carried out by people sporting Nazi gear and shouting homophobic hate speech.
Hamburger Mary’s was founded in 1972 in San Francisco and the restaurant regularly hosts a “Drag Brunch” on weekends at its downtown Houston location, where diners can be entertained by local drag stars while they eat.
Houston Chronicle reports that the dozen or so protesters were with ‘Protect Texas Kids’, a group that claims children are being “indoctrinated” by gay and transgender activists, and showed up to try to cause trouble and disrupt the event.
Soon after the protest began, a small group of men are said to have arrived to join the anti-trans protesters, shouting homophobic slurs and Nazi slogans.
However the mob was largely drowned out by boos and chants from the counter-protesters, who eventually outnumbered them.
— Jay R. Jordan (@jayrjordan) July 10, 2022
The group of counter protesters, said to be organized by the Screwston Anti-Fascist Committee, held up a variety of signs like “Anti-Fascist” and “Bigots Go Home,” while playing pop songs and gay anthems to drown out the group’s offensive chants.
Protect Texas Kids founder Kelly Neidert told the Houston Chronicle, “I don’t think parents should be allowed to take their kids to these events, and I think that there should be a law banning it from happening”
It comes as numerous Republican lawmakers have taken aim drag culture to detract from calls for tighter gun reform in the US.
Some with Kelly Neidert’s group are now shouting hate speech
Warning: language pic.twitter.com/GMrTFYfcqO— Jay R. Jordan (@jayrjordan) July 10, 2022
In June, Republican politician Bryan Slaton, from the Texas House of Representatives, filed a bill to “ban drag shows in the presence of minors in Texas“, claiming the legislation is about “protecting kids from drag shows” and other so-called “inappropriate displays”.
“My biggest thing is when they start pushing their indoctrination or agenda toward kids,” Nidert then told KPRC 2.
“When they are adult and doing adult things, whatever, but when they are having these highly inappropriate sexual provocative shows and they are allowing children inside and parents encouraging their kids to hand the performers money, that’s where I and most conservatives have a problem.”
One man wore a swastika pendant and can be seen shouting homophobic slurs like “fa*gots” at the counter protesters in video posted to social media.
Not much has changed in the last 30 minutes or so. Hamburger Mary’s, which is hosting the drag show, is blasting ABBA pic.twitter.com/r0a5ajQoXm
— Jay R. Jordan (@jayrjordan) July 10, 2022
A 30-year-old counterprotester told the Houston Chronicle, “You don’t get to go around in polite society with these bigoted views, so that’s why we came out to support our community”, with another telling KHOU 11 that the counter protest was fighting for “freedom of expression, freedom to be who you are” and “freedom to not be intimidated by anybody”.