Dan Savage Helps University Drag Show Sell Out After Antigay Org Protests

Blogger John M. Becker reports Julaine Appling, the president of antigay organization Wisconsin Family Action, began a vocal protest when she learned a drag show featuring Shangela from RuPaul’s Drag Race was scheduled to be held Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin–Fox Valley.

“The University of Wisconsin System Fox Valley will be hosting a ‘drag show’ at the Communication Arts Center theater in Menasha. The ‘main attraction’ is the guest appearance of self-proclaimed male homosexual transvestite ‘Shangela’ from a lewd reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race in which homosexual male drag performers compete for prizes. The tickets are cheap ($3), and so, it appears, is the propaganda, display of immorality, and overall message to the Fox Valley community,” Aplling wrote in an Action Alert on the WFA website.

The protest quickly escalated and caught the attention of a local Fox News affiliate which aired both an interview with Appling and a UW-Fox Valley student who claimed she was uncomfortable with the drag show on campus because it was “contrary to her religion.”

After Becker posted about the controversy on Facebook, It Gets Better Project founder Dan Savage saw the story and took action to counter Appling and the WFA’s antigay crusade by purchasing all the remaining tickets for the university drag show and donating them back to the school to distribute free of charge to students and community members, ensuring the event’s success.

Watch the local news report below.

Correction: An earlier version of this incorrectly identified Dan Savage as a cofounder of The Trevor Project.