On May 27, a United States Air Force base located in Ramstein, Germany, canceled its plans to hold a “Drag Queen Story Time” event for children at its on-base library.
The cancellation followed Senator Marco Rubio’s writing of a letter imploring Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to order base commanders to cancel the event and “take appropriate disciplinary action against all involved.”
Organizers scheduled the event for June 2 and made a Facebook event page to announce and publicize the occasion, which was intended to mark and celebrate LGBT Pride Month. Drag queen Stacey Teed was supposed to be featured as the event’s special guest reader.
“We’re celebrating Pride Month at the Ramstein Library with Drag Queen Storytime!” read the announcement, according to The Epoch Times. “Be sure to wear your brightest and most colorful outfits!”
The event page has since been deleted.
Reporting from the Post Millennial may have initially brought the matter to Rubio’s attention.
In his letter, Rubio called the event “politically divisive” and a “gross abuse of taxpayer funding” that “place[s] children in a sexualized environment.”
It is unclear whether the letter motivated military authorities to cancel the event. Not long after Rubio drafted it, a spokesperson for the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein contacted the Post Millennial.
They stated, “An advertisement was posted to the base library social media page before the event had completed Ramstein’s established processes for special observance coordination and approval. The advertisement has been removed and the event will not take place.”
Rubio claimed credit for the event’s cancellation, issuing a press release and tweet asserting his letter was the cause.
Base residents and library staff protested the cancellation.
Librarian Melissa Kay tweeted, “We’re being forced to cancel all drag events on Ramstein due to a minority of people that have nothing to do with our base or community.”
LGBT advocate and fellow member of the Ramstein community Natalie Ricketts posted two Change.org petitions.
In the first, she wrote, “Marco Rubio is now claiming that he single handedly canceled the events, even though the timeline he gives doesn’t match actual events.”
Her other petition called for the airbase to reinstate the event. She provided a timeline of events and claimed that the event had base approval per its event guidelines.
She commented: “Instead of supporting the base and the community here on the MSG Commander and Lt. Col. Will Powell, Chief of Public Affairs, they likely made their decision based on hate filled discriminating comments on the Facebook event page (which has since been deleted) that was fueled by articles from right wing news.”
As of Monday, June 6, each petition had approximately 1,200 e-signatures.
