E.W. Jackson is a conservative pundit and failed Republican politician, but he’s probably most recognized currently for claiming to have “immunity” from coronavirus in March, only to contract coronavirus in November.
Now, Jackson’s latest mind-boggling claim is that Drag Queen Story Hours, a series of events hosted by libraries or bookstores across the continent where local drag performers read to children, is “the equivalent of pedophilia.”
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Drag Queen Story Hour was created, and formally started, in 2015 by Michelle Tea, Juli Delgado Lopera, Virgie Tovar, and RADAR Productions in San Francisco. Since, local self-funded chapters have appeared all around the globe.
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They have since become regular occurrences in several states — and even Canada, Mexico, and Asia — and also the target of conservative backlash in places like North Carolina and Missouri.
Jackson ranted on the topic for over three minutes of his daily Facebook stream, entitled “The Wisdom Meditation” that is supposedly “dedicated to reading and discussing the Bible.” But at the open of the show, Jackson admitted “today, I don’t really have much to talk about” other than his own personal commentary.
The self-proclaimed bishop claimed that he was trying to start a discussion related to a scripture he was going to read. Instead, Jackson bought up “tyrannical” lawmakers trying to curve the coronavirus infections — calling it the “Wuhan, China virus” — by bringing back “slavery” through “socialism.”
Then the conversation devolves from the scripture to Jackson bringing up the literary events that were trending across the country last year, but have sparingly happened in recent months (albeit virtually, if at all) due to the pandemic.
He rambles on to bring up his time as a lawyer, claiming that he witnessed social workers and child advocates using attendance of church as evidence of child abuse.
“Do you think toddlers and kindergartners are [asking] to go to Drag Queen Story Hour?” he reasoned. “Taking your children to church is not abuse. It’s what God commands us to do. But taking your children to Drag Queen Story Hour is abuse of a magnitude that is hard to overstate.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s the equivalent of pedophilia, and it should be treated the same way.”
Jackson reasoned that adults were forcing children into “a whole lot of sexual garbage” by bringing them to readings that are meant to promote and improve youth literacy. “This is child abuse to take these children to be entertained by these perverse individuals whose lives are a moral sewer,” he seethed to a total audience of 800 viewers within the two days since it was broadcast.
“Child abuse is what I would call taking children to see one of these freaks go through a whole lot of sexual garbage trying to instill this mess in the minds of toddlers and kindergartners,” he derided.
He stops to admit that his language is “rough,” but it’s because “I have no patience with this mess,” he claimed.
“Look, I love that drag queen,” he said, “[but] that person needs God, that person needs to be saved, that person needs to be delivered. God wants that person to be a normal human being. A drag queen is not a normal human being.”
Right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson declares that Drag Queen Story Hour is "the equivalent of pedophilia" and says parents who take their child to such an event "need to have their children taken away from them." https://t.co/LT8LP6Xr6c pic.twitter.com/HwVYDz5MFQ
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) December 18, 2020
Prior to contracting coronavirus last month, Jackson repeatedly contended he was immune because he “talked to God about it,” and the holy deity had immunized him with a vaccine, long before one was actually developed.
“I’ve taken my vaccine, and my vaccine is Psalm 91,” he claimed in March.
“Of course [Christians] can” get coronavirus, Jackson contended, “but here’s what I’m saying: You don’t have to. If you know how to believe God, you don’t have to. Hallelujah. And if you don’t have to, then don’t.”
After still testing positive for the infection, Jackson blamed it on his inability to take rest on Sundays. “The Bible says we’re supposed to rest one day a week, and I’ve been working seven days a week probably for – I don’t know – who knows how long,” he told Newsweek.
This year was far from Jackson’s first foray into controversial speech. He claimed in 2019 that Pete Buttigieg and the “gay mafia” were imposing a “homo-ocracy” on America.
In 2017, he said that using “they” pronouns “is a subconscious spiritual admission of demon possession by multiple demons.” He also said that LGBTQ people would “never, ever” win the “approval” of Christians.
He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2011, Virginia Lieutenant Governor in 2013, and for the Senate again in 2018 — failing each time. His last foray for public office ended with him expressing “regrets” for preaching that gay people are “frankly very sick people, psychologically, mentally, and emotionally” and “sexualize [children] at the earliest possible age,” because he thought only Christians would hear it at the time.
During his Lieutenant Governor campaign, Jackson said that marriage equality, or “Adam and Steve,” will “soon be Adam and a bull.”
After his own political campaign didn’t take off, he became a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, who he’s claimed is hated for being “too much of a man” for “the radical feminists, the homosexuals, [and] the transgenders.” In comparison, President Barack Obama was “effete” and “light in the loafers.”
