St. George • The off-and-on again cultural clash over drag events in St. George is back on after city leaders rejected Southern Utah Drag Stars’ application to stage an all-ages drag event at a municipal park.
City Council members are meeting today to weigh appeals from Mitski Avalox, CEO of Southern Utah Drag Stars, which was slated to hold the Allies & Community Drag Show Festival on April 28 at J.C. Snow Park in St. George.
In addition, the council will mull over an appeal from Indigo Klabanoff, with Seed Inc.’s St. George Market Small Business Incubator, whose application to host a Taste of Southern Utah Food Festival on Oct. 28 on downtown Main Street was also denied.
In rejecting the applications, city officials notified the two applicants they violated St. George’s ordinance that bans applicants from advertising special events until receiving final approval and a permit from the city.
Avalox says while more than one applicant’s special event request was nixed, it is evident that drag events are the driving force behind the denials, especially since Ironman 70.3 North American Championship and numerous other events have been greenlighted despite advertising in advance of receiving a final permit.
“When I submitted my application, it seems that in order to make it seem like [the city] was being nondiscriminatory, they also denied a couple of other events,” Avalox said.
Drag events at city parks have sparked controversy over the past year.
In January, council members renewed the city’s sponsorship of the Downtown Farmers Market for six months, despite allegations from Councilwoman Michelle Tanner that market co-owners Kat Puzey and Ashley Tiller were using the weekly event at Vernon Worthen Park to promote a drag event over Thanksgiving Day weekend at Mofaco, a private farm and artisan co-op Puzey owns.
In turn, Councilwoman Danielle Larkin and Mayor Michele Randall accused Tanner of deliberately mischaracterizing the nature of the event and politicizing the sponsorship issue.
Council members forced St. George City Manager Adam Lenhard to resign in October when he balked at the demand of Tanner and others that he cancel the permits for the HBO “We’re Here” drag show at a city park last summer. He was later awarded a confidential $625,000 settlement to avoid legal action for wrongful termination.
(St. George City via YouTube) Chris Keele speaks out against drag at last Thursday's St George City Council meeting. The black and white sticker on his Oath Keepers Utah shirt reads Protect Utah's Kids.
To avoid future problems, the City Council adopted a six-month moratorium on March 16, which put a stop to allowing further special events at city parks and spaces until the council could tweak the ordinance governing the rules for such gatherings and the conditions that would have to be met.
Last Thursday, the council unanimously approved amending the ordinance, essentially exempting recurring events from that moratorium and making it apply solely to those applicants seeking to host new events.
While Avalox submitted his request for the drag show before the moratorium was enacted, and drag shows were not part of the agenda of last Thursday’s meeting, the large crowd that packed the council chambers sporting identical “Protect Utah’s Kids” stickers spoke against Avalox’s show — and drag shows in general.
“I wish to thank [the mayor and council] for their recent decision to not grant this permit,” said Chris Keele, wearing a Utah Oathkeepers T-shirt.
Keele decried the drag event held “by these people” at a downtown park last summer in the shadow of the St. George temple.
“We are in a war zone it would seem, good against evil,” Keele said. “Those liberal-leaning exhibitionists who attack … the moral fiber of this great republic and the family structure that is so relevant to our decent community is beyond offensive.
“I believe the intent is to wear us down and hope that the distractions of this complex and ever-changing demographic will take advantage once we take our eye off, from the prize,” he continued. “They’re in hopes we’ll become desensitized and give in to their disgusting agenda.”
Kasandra Leavitt, a founder of the anti-vaccination group Your Health Freedom Dixie, also weighed in.
“Biological sex is the most basic of scientific facts,” she said. “Your chromosomes determine your gender, not your feelings. A few of my grandchildren were visiting me this weekend, and they were pretending that they were puppies. One of them had a leash and was walking the others around as they were barking. But nobody suggested that we take them in for identity therapy or gene therapy.”
Noting the city has proclaimed April as Child Abuse Prevention Month, Karren Willard asked the mayor and council if they were protecting children by allowing drag to be performed in a public space.
“I do have to say,” she added, “there’s a terrible rumor going around that Mayor Randall and [Councilwoman] Dannielle Larkin have an agenda or a goal to make St. George the drag queen hub of the West.”
For her part, Larkin said such statements display a fundamental misunderstanding.
“We’re not in charge of planning or driving special events,” she said. “We don’t plan them. We don’t bring them. They come from residents or from businesses”
“If city residents can apply to use our facilities for a pageant, tap-dance performance, lip-sync contest, drag show or whatever, and they can objectively check the boxes and agree to the standards already in place,” she added, “they should be able to use our facilities.”
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