 The state government of Texas is so hateful towards women and marginalized people that they've managed to concoct new and innovative ways to subject people to oppression. It's like they're creative in their bigotry, but never creative when it comes to solutions to help people, of course. But remember back in 2022, how they effectively introduced a bounty hunting system for anyone aiding and abetting women seeking abortions after six weeks? Well, now they're trying to extend that system to drag queens. Yeah, it's as dystopian as it sounds. The advocate explains, A Texas Republican lawmaker proposed a bill allowing everyday people to sue anybody who hosts or performs in drag where any child is in attendance. Critics say the measure will create a bounty hunting culture that targets drag queens and transgender people. Houston area State Representative Steve Toth filed HP 4378 on Thursday. He seeks to define a cause of action for drag performances performed in the presence of a minor. According to the bill, quote, an individual who attends a drag performance as a minor may bring an action against the person who knowingly promotes, conducts, or participates as a performer in the drag performance that occurs before an audience that includes the minor. A winning plaintiff can expect to be paid actual damages, attorney's fees, and get this, statutory damages of $5,000. This is so insane. The bill uses the same tactics of the controversial 2021 SB 8 in Texas, which gave private citizens the right to sue anybody they thought could have been involved with any part of an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. So in other words, it's just a normal week in Texas. Insane. Now, because the language of this bill is so vague, which is pretty typical for anti LGBTQ plus bills, so as to have the broadest impact, this could lead to some pretty insane outcomes. For example, trans activist Erin Reed explained via Twitter, these bounties can easily be turned against trans performers. This bill would likely ban competitors from performing in Texas, for instance. It could also ban a trans person from singing karaoke. It could ban pride. So obviously the implications of this are very far reaching. And because a law like this already exists in Texas, albeit for abortions, we already know that pitting residents against each other and incentivizing bounty hunting leads to some pretty dystopian results. For example, the Texas Tribune reports, a Texas man is suing three women under the wrongful death statute alleging that they assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy. The first such case brought since the state's near total abortion ban last summer. Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas Solicitor General and architect of the state's prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and state representative Brisco Kane, a Republican from Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County where Silva lives. Now let's pause right there because as CBS News reported back in September, because of Texas's abortion ban, quote, residents of the state can sue clinics, doctors, nurses, and even people who drive a woman to get the procedure for at least $10,000. So because of laws like this, it emboldens psychopaths like the individual in this lawsuit who is suing his ex-wife and her friends because his ex-wife made a decision about her own body that he disagreed with. He gets to treat them legally as if they were accessories to murder because in the state of Texas, well, an abortion is murder, which is genuinely unhinged, but that's Texas for you. Now he's not actually suing her under the bounty hunting provision within Texas's abortion ban. He's suing her under the wrongful death statute, which the article alluded to here. And we'll get to why he's probably doing that here in a moment, but still this whole system incentivized this behavior. He is now alleging that his ex-wife conspired with two of her friends to illegally obtain medication that would induce an abortion. But what does that actually look like in practice? Well, basically it amounts to one of her friends texting her and telling her that there's an international organization that discreetly sends women abortion medication to the male, and another one of her friends simply delivered the medication to her, I'm assuming because she was still with her ex-husband at the time, who's a psychopath, presumably, and she had to have her friend get it and then deliver it to her. But all three of these women are being sued under a wrongful death statute since self-induced abortions qualify as murder under Texas state law. And he's asking for, wait for it, I can't believe this, one million dollars in damages again because his ex-wife made a decision about her own body that he didn't like. So this is why presumably he's not pursuing this under the bounty hunting provision within the abortion ban because he thought that ten thousand dollars wasn't a big enough reward for him. He wants a million dollars for turning in these criminals who aided and abetted his ex-wife with a murder. It's so insane, it feels comical. The point is, when you turn citizens against each other, the result is predictably disastrous. Imagine this applying to drag queens. If you have a picture of yourself, for example, that you took on Halloween with your kid, well, somebody could get five thousand dollars for turning you in. If you are a trans person who happens to be a parent, someone could mistake you for a drag queen, turn you in and subsequently be rewarded five thousand dollars. This is what this type of law is allowing. And this is all part of the effort in Texas to crack down on civil rights and civil liberties and subject everyone to their theocratic worldview and paint all LGBTQ plus people as if they're all dangerous to children, which is just bullshit. But the actual irony is that actual child predators probably love the GOP's fixation on LGBTQ plus people. As Marjorie Gaylor Queen points out on Twitter, a lawyer on TikTok is performing a weekly list of recently arrested pedophiles in America simply to point out that it's all youth pastors and politicians, not drag queens. So let's take a look at that. In the past week, there have been 17 arrests or convictions of adults accused of having sex with children. Of those 17, 14 were pastors or youth pastors at Christian churches. One was the husband of a youth pastor. One, a police officer. None were drag queens. I don't know how many weeks I can keep it up for, but here is this week's count of adults in the United States arrested or sentenced for sex crimes involving children. One Christian pastor. Three youth pastors. One rabbi. One small town mayor. One Mormon bishop. And one retiree. Once again, not a single drag queen and not a single person who's transgender. Time now for week three in our series, who's making news in the United States for sex crimes involving children. This week, nine pastors or youth pastors, one Catholic church official, one school librarian, and one Idaho state rep who raped a girl and is being sued by her along with another state rep who helped out her. Atop that, Tennessee's Lieutenant Governor caught tweeting to a 20 year old gay man. Oh, no drag queens. No transgender people yet again. You want the totals? Here they are. So far, 30 religious figures. One school official. And three politicians. Nobody trans. No drag queens. That's three weeks. Footnotes. We're not leaving anybody out. This is just the people who made the news. Not all cases do. But wait, I was told that drag queens and LGBTQ plus people were the biggest threats to children. Our lawmakers in Texas going to set up a bounty hunting system so concerned citizens can get rewarded for turning in youth pastors if they're caught within the presence of children. I mean, of course not. It's ridiculous. Their goal is to purposefully vilify the totality of the LGBTQ plus community paint them all as child predators. That's the goal of these laws. So if the GOP actually cared about protecting children, that's who they focus on. Focusing on LGBTQ plus people, as the attorney pointed out, is a dead end. They're giving actual pedophiles a pass. Now, before I go any further, just make sure that you follow that lawyer on TikTok. She is phenomenal. She has more great content. But with every antiquated bigoted law, there's always some bogus justification. The Republican Party has to focus on dumb shit like this because whenever they talk about their economic agenda, they start turning off their own constituents really quick with suggestions that we cut food stamps or we raise the retirement age. Can't focus on that because they know that's not going to be too popular. So what do they do? They find a scapegoat, a scapegoat that allows them to conveniently distract you while they stab you in the back. So this is par for the course for the party. And I wouldn't be surprised if this past and other states adopted it because that's the climate that we're in where it's that hostile towards LGBTQ plus people.