President Biden celebrated Pride Month at the White House Wednesday as events encouraging celebration of LGBTQ identity and visibility are increasingly being targeted by white supremacist violence and as Republican-controlled states pass a slew of anti-LGBTQ measures. We speak with Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director for Media Matters, who says far-right social media influencers and conservative media outlets are spreading lies that members of the LGBTQ community “aim to confuse, corrupt or sexualize kids.” We also talk to Southern Poverty Law Center investigative reporter Michael Edison Hayden, who has studied the key players in recent attacks and describes a “concerted effort to ramp up this rhetoric tying LGBTQ people baselessly to pedophilia.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.