American charged with attempting to burn down church hosting 'drag shows'

BET À DAY

An American accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a church hosting “drag shows” in Ohio, in the northern United States, has been charged by federal justice as the debates on gender issues tense the country. 

Aimenn Penny, 20, was arrested and charged on March 31 with charges including “arson” and “possession of an incendiary device,” according to a statement from the US Department of Justice released Monday.

M . Penny is accused of trying to burn down a church after learning she was set to host several 'drag shows', events where drag queens – often male – perform by adopting exaggerated codes of femininity like wigs, shimmering dresses, stilettos and makeup.

The young man was part of a neo-Nazi group and had participated in a demonstration in early March against the holding of a “Drag Queen Story Hour”, reading meetings for children where the storytellers are drag queens, in the town of Wadsworth, in northern Ohio, according to court documents.

At the event, Aimenn Penny carried a Nazi flag and shouted “racist and homophobic slurs,” according to the same source.

Mr. Penny, who admitted the facts, assured the federal police that he was “looking to protect the children and put an end to the drag show” after watching videos of French drag shows.

This case comes in the when drag queens have become the new targets of American conservatives, on the front line of the “culture wars” that are inflaming the country.

Launched in 2015 in San Francisco, the “Drag Queen Story Hour” is thus become the nightmare of the right, which sees in it at best activism, at worst a spectacle of a sexual nature, dangerous for children.

Aimenn Penny faces up to 20 years in prison.