Op-Ed: Wilton Manors Stonewall Organizer, Makes Rules To Protect Kids From Lewd, Crude & Rude

By Melissa Martin, Ph.D. Last updated May 31, 2023 Share with new partner:

WILTON MANORS, FL – Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed SB 1438, titled “Protection of Children,” into law. The legislation prohibits anyone from knowingly admitting a child to an adult live performance. The bills define “adult live performance” as any presentation that is performed in front of a live audience that depicts “nudity,” “sexual conduct,” “sexual excitement,” “specific sexual activities,” “lewd conduct,” or the “lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.”

Finally, a Pride member is speaking out for decency and against deviancy at an LGBTQ event where minors attend. It’s about time.

The Sun Sentinel recently interviewed Jeffrey Sterling, the CEO of Stonewall Pride Inc. The Wilton Manors Stonewall Parade & Street Festival is one of the region’s largest gay pride events that typically draws a crowd of 30,000.

Excerpts:

The major changes will focus on conduct, clothes and language.

Vulgarity is out. “If you wouldn’t say it in front of your 6-year-old niece, you ain’t saying it in public,” Sterling said.

There is a dress code. Showing off female breasts and prosthetics are out. “None of that borderline stuff like pasties.”

Sterling will tell performers, “You are entertaining for minors, your audience is a bunch of kindergartners. How would you treat it as if it was your child.”

And there’s conduct. “You can’t touch yourself inappropriately, grabbing genitalia, using your body and thrusting it in a certain way,” Sterling said.

Kudos to Sterling.

But how sad that a governor has to sign a law with penalties to ensure that adults don’t engage in sexually explicit body movements while wearing bondage gear in front of minors. How sad that sensible citizens have to demand no kink, no half-naked participants twerking in thongs, no BDSM attire, and no raunchy jokes or remarks at public LGBTQ events.

However, Scott Newton, mayor of Wilton Manors is not a happy camper. According to the article, “He vowed the event, set for Saturday, June 17, would continue with little disruption.”

“It’s not going to affect us at all,” Newton said. “We are going to have our parade, there are going to be drag queens.”

Journalist Jason Parsley, in an opinion piece for the South Florida Gay News, took offense at the new legislation that protects children. “Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” He added, “Also, wear pasties.”

Scott Galvin, the executive director of Safe Schools South Florida, posted on social media, “I’ve been saying for months that raids of gay bars are near. We need our club owners to stand with us.”

Argh. Galvin, the fearmonger, is either expressing paranoia or reacting like a drama diva. And all because rational adults want to defend and protect children from lewd, crude, and rude acts at public Pride festivals and events. Nobody is banning adult men in prom dresses or pasties (aka drag queens) from entertaining adults in private adult places.

According to another article in South Florida Gay News, Wilton Manors Commissioner Chris Caputo “says he intends to show up at Stonewall in drag and encourages others to follow suit.”

Caputo sounds just like a rebellious teenager.

Again, how sad, disappointing, and incredulous it is – that reasonable citizens have to require grown men to dress and behave like responsible adults in front of minors in public places.

Florida boosts of myriad clothes-optional gay resorts where naked adult males can get together and gyrate without being observed by children and parents.

“We are telling people not to run, not to hide,” Equality Florida’s Carlos Guillermo Smith told Reuters. “That’s what the bigots want.” Smith is a former Democratic state representative who is running for state senate.

So, citizens that want to protect children are bigots. Smith has no place in the Florida senate if he doesn’t want to protect children, our most vulnerable citizens, from lewdness, crudeness, and rudeness.