They had to pass barricades, metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs, a background check by event organizers, and a sign still bearing the scorch marks of what authorities called an attempt by a neo-Nazi to “burn … the entire church to the ground”.
But on Saturday 1 April, more than 100 residents of north-east Ohio gathered inside the Chesterland Community church and listened to a group of drag queens read stories to children. “It was amazing,” the church’s pastor, Jess Peacock, said to the Guardian. “I kept seeing the smiles on the kids faces and for me it was like, that’s why we did this.”
Saturday’s event was the first Drag Queen Story Hour held by the church, in a community where the same church held the first local LGBTQ+ Pride event just last year.
Peacock said that they expected to receive a certain amount of backlash – “hate mail and hate voicemail and social media hate” – when they began publicizing the event, but the response to the story hour went far beyond the usual.
“The messages we started getting were much more vitriolic, in the sense of accusations of pedophilia, grooming and horrible things being done to kids,” they said. “It felt like this was a bit different. And then once someone tried burning our church down, it went to a whole other level.”
