Anti-LGBTQ broadcaster Kari Lake has won the Republican primary election for governor of Arizona, which was held this past Tuesday.
Lake, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, made her opposition to drag queens part of her campaign, calling them “activists sexualizing young children.”
“They kicked God out of schools and welcomed the Drag Queens,” she wrote on social media this past June. “They took down our Flag and replaced it with a rainbow. They seek to disarm Americans and militarize our Enemies. Let’s bring back the basics: God, Guns & Glory.”
Drag queen Richard Stevens – who goes by Barbra Seville on stage – wrote on Facebook that Lake took her kid to one of his drag shows. When Lake’s lawyer told Stevens to stop talking about Lake’s love of drag from before she was a Republican politician or else she might file a lawsuit, his lawyer wrote a hilariously fearless letter in response.
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“[Your cease and desist letter] was served on Richard just as he was going to perform at a family-friendly Drag Brunch — the kind of event that Ms. Lake used to enjoy,” the letter began. “Ms. Lake even hired Richard to perform as Barbra Seville at a baby shower for another well-known news anchor. We have the evidence.”
“Something happened to [Lake] to make her mean, angry and sullen. Now Kari is a bully,” the letter continued. “The reservoir of goodwill she had built up over the years as a cherished news anchor — well, that’s been drained to the point where we might as well just refer to her now as Kari Puddles.”
“To be clear: Mr. Stevens will not ‘cease and desist,'” the letter concluded. “If Ms. Lakes moves forward with filing a suit… I cannot imagine your client will be happy to revisit all the times she spent with Barbra Seville when I depose Ms. Lake.”
Lake’s campaign said that Stevens performed as a “Marilyn Monroe impersonator” at a party, which means that he wasn’t doing a drag show. She also said that drag is “sexualizing young children.”
“The event in question was a party at someone else’s house, and the performer was there as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator,” her campaign said in a statement. “It wasn’t a drag show, and the issue we’re talking about isn’t adults attending drag shows, either. The issue is activists sexualizing young children, and that’s got to stop.”
Lake has also relied the false belief that Trump actually won the 2020 election but had it stolen by President Joe Biden as part of a multi-state operation to steal millions of votes while also somehow eliminating all evidence of that operation in her campaign.
And she already cited election trutherism in her own campaign, saying on Tuesday that “if we don’t win, there’s some cheating going on.”
She ended up winning the close election, making her the fourth Republican to win a major nomination in Arizona while spreading the lie that Trump won the 2020 election.
She will face Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes (D) in the fall.
