Columbus police to monitor drag storytelling event after Proud Boys announce protest plans

Columbus police will be present to monitor a storytelling event at a North Side church after a far-right extremist group announced plans to disrupt and protest it.

The "Holi-Drag Storytime" event is scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. Dec. 3 at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, located on West Weisheimer Road. The event is being hosted by Red Oak Community School, a private school that operates at the church.

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The event will feature three local drag performers reading stories to children and performing a "few holiday numbers," according to the event page on the school's website. Tickets are being sold online for $10, as well as tickets to view a livestream of the event.

The Ohio Chapter of the Proud Boys, an extremist organization whose leadership has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, posted on the social media platform Telegram on Nov. 15 that they intend to attend and protest the even.

"It's going to be wild," the group said in its posting. That's the same statement made by President Donald Trump encouraging people to come to his rally on Jan. 6, 2021 during which he told attendees to march down to the Capitol building where the electoral college votes were being counted certifying President Joe Biden's victory over Trump.

The Telegram messaging channel on which the announcement was posted also features posts with photographs of school and church leaders and the phone number for the church, as well as comments such as "Our gays are better than their gays."

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Red Oak Community School, which says its mission is to foster "students' sense of their place and power in the natural world and in their communities," posted a statement on its website saying the event will go on and providing resources for people who want to donate or volunteer at the event.

"Our ROCS community hosts this drag story time event for the LGBTQ+ community in Columbus because it promotes values in young children that we hold dear to our hearts- love, kindness, inclusivity and understanding," the statement said. "What child doesn't enjoy stories, music and glitter?"

The announcement of the protest was made several days before a shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ nightclub that left five people dead and 19 injured.

The online furor over the event and the planned protest by the Proud Boys in the wake of the Club Q mass shooting in Colorado have also caught the eye of Columbus City Council, which issued a statement on the matter this week.

"Columbus City Council condemns the far-right extremists who are attempting to intimidate families at an upcoming holiday reading event," the statement said. "All families deserve to be safe, and anti-LGBTQ behavior is not welcome in the City of Columbus."

Columbus police told The Dispatch on Tuesday that they are aware of the planned "disruption" and have plans to monitor the event to ensure it is peaceful. Specific security measures were not disclosed.

Proud Boys chapters across the country have disrupted or "crashed" similar storytime events involving drag performers in 2022.

Stonewall Columbus was closed on Friday, but had posted information about the planned protest on its social media accounts. Back2Stonewall, a media organization for LGBTQ+ specific news, posted a message asking for those who are able to counterprotest the Proud Boys' plans.

"We need to start standing up for ourselves again because as you can see no one else will," the post read.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus police to monitor drag storytime after Proud Boys protest call