Home

On April 3, 2025 Western Kentucky University’s Department of Housing and Residence Life hosted it’s 10th Annual Drag Show. Offering no age restrictions, the event, held at the publicly funded Knicely Conference Center, included at least one child. A photo of a four year old giving a dollar bill to drag queen Georgina George was featured in an April 4, 2025 article covering the event.

According to a 2024 article in WKU’s College Height’s Herald, the first Housing and Residence Life Drag Show occurred in 2015 at a campus residence hall. As the event grew it was moved to Downing Student Union and then to the Knicely Convention Center.

Calling for age restrictions and a ban on drag shows in publicly funded venues, Warren County Conservatives organized a petition drive which generated wide-spread interest. Over 400 people signed the petition. Twenty-five percent of respondents are WKU alumni.

Below, read community responses gathered through the petition.

Signatures and responses continue to be collected. Sign and share the petition, here.

Community Responses

By Semir Nailovic

People ask why we’re stepping into this fight. This. Right here. This is why.

Because somewhere along the way, this country stopped drawing the line. Somewhere, we forgot that protecting children is not controversial, it’s fundamental.

Western Kentucky University recently hosted its 10th Annual Drag Show. But this wasn’t just a performance for adults. Children were present. One child, just four years old, was photographed handing a dollar to a drag performer. That image, with the child’s full name, was published by WKU’s own student newspaper, The Herald.

Let that sink in. A preschooler. On a college campus. In front of a stage. Handing money to an adult performer. And the institution that allowed it didn’t just condone it, they hosted it.

Where were the age restrictions? Where was the adult judgment? Where was the basic decency?

This isn’t about drag as an art form. It’s not about hate or division. It’s about harm. Let’s be clear: adults have the right to express themselves. Drag, like other performance art, is protected speech. And for many, it serves as a place of community and identity. That’s not in question.

What is in question is why children are being brought into these spaces. This isn’t a gray area, it’s a failure to protect. That boundary should be absolute. And that line should never be blurred.

Public colleges, funded by your tax dollars, are not meant to be cultural battlegrounds. They are not meant to expose young children to adult themes under the excuse of “inclusivity.”

They are meant to educate. To stay neutral. To protect.

As for the WKU student newspaper, The Herald, publishing that photo wasn’t journalism. It was recklessness. It was exploitation. And it was a betrayal of public trust. Not only for the photo and publishing a minor’s name, but for turning a blind eye to the safety of a child.

This is why action must be taken.

Other States Are Leading, So Can Kentucky

In 2023, Tennessee passed the Tennessee Adult Entertainment Act, which bans adult cabaret performances, including drag shows, in public spaces and in places where children could be present. This law drew a firm line in the sand: protecting minors must come first.

Kentucky attempted to do the same with Senate Bill 115 in 2013 and Senate Bill 147 in 2024. SB 147 would have restricted adult-themed performances from taking place near schools, parks, and places of worship, and prohibited minors from attending such events. Unfortunately, despite passing the Senate, the bill stalled in the House and never became law.

But this fight isn’t over.

Fight Back by Signing This Petition

If we are successful with this petition, if we demonstrate that Kentuckians want to protect our children from exposure to adult content, we can revisit Senate Bill 147 in 2026 and push for its passage.

This is our opportunity to lead with common sense. To stand with parents. To stand for childhood. And to hold our public institutions accountable.

We are calling for immediate and decisive action.

We call for a complete ban on drag shows and similar adult-themed performances on all college and university property. Public institutions are not the place for this kind of content, especially not where children are involved.

We call for the enforcement of strict, non-negotiable age requirements for any adult-oriented events held in public venues. No child should ever be present at or exposed to sexually expressive performances.

We call for an end to the use of taxpayer dollars, directly or indirectly, to fund, promote, or support any event involving drag performances on campus grounds.

We call for institutional neutrality. State-funded colleges must not take sides in polarizing cultural battles. They exist to educate, not to indoctrinate.

Children are not political props. They are not social experiments. And they are not entertainment.

To every parent who is fed up… to every taxpayer who feels ignored… to every citizen who believes that children deserve a childhood, this is your moment.

Sign the petition. Share the message. Stand with us.

Because if we don’t protect them now, who will? Enough is enough.

Semir Nailovic is a father, small business owner and a concerned citizen using his voice to advocate for the protection of children and the preservation of family values.

By Gary Houchens

Feeling stressed about the weather? Don’t worry. The government loves you.

That’s the perplexing message from Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. When snow and ice swept through the state in early January, Beshear made a rather bizarre post on X (formerly known as Twitter).

“If you or someone you know is dealing with the emotional distress of compounding traumatic weather events, call the Disaster Distress Hotline,” the Governor wrote, and then added, “We love you and we are here for you.”

The absurdities of this post abound and reflect so much that has gone awry in the way Americans on the political left think about the role of government.

If you’re like me, you have never heard of the Disaster Distress Hotline, but it has been around since 2012, when the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) received funding to assist citizens in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 

SAMHSA, which spends around $8 billion of taxpayer money per year, in turn pays the nonprofit Vibrant Emotional Health to administer the hotline. In 2024, Vibrant was award $80 million over two years to administer the disaster hotline and the national suicide prevention hotline.

Suicide prevention is obviously an important goal, and in the immediate wake of a disaster, there’s a place for a hotline to connect survivors with resources for recovery. When tornadoes demolished swathes of Kentucky in 2021, we saw both the financial and the emotional toll to victims, a toll that did not immediately subside when the physical damage was cleaned up.

But do we really need a hotline for snowstorms and power outages? These are stressful events, especially for those of limited financial means. But why wouldn’t the Governor first encourage people to reach out to local churches and nonprofit entities for help?

Instead, Beshear encourages a world where those with fewer resources are not just dependent on the government for financial benefits, but also for emotional support. This is a governor who mistakes an expensive, faceless government bureaucracy for “love.”

Paradoxically, this is also a governor who unnecessarily tried to shut down schools, businesses and churches for months during COVID with insufficient regard for the “emotional distress” it caused. But of course, even then what he meant by “love” was the heavy, soulless hand of the state depriving you of genuine community.

Marriage, families, neighborhoods, civic organizations, and faith communities have all been in steady decline thanks to policies advocated by the political left. Now that these sources of genuine community are gone from so many people’s lives, the left sees only a world of isolated individuals dependent on an all-powerful state.

The government cannot love you. Andy Beshear can personally love you, but only if he’s directly involved in your life, giving of his personal time and resources to help you. It’s not love when he’s using someone else’s money or some government contractor on the other end of a telephone line.

There may be a place for a taxpayer-funded disaster hotline. But it’s no replacement for community. It’s not for dealing with the normal stresses of routine weather patterns. And it’s not “love.”

Gary Houchens, PhD, is professor of education administration and director of the educational leadership doctoral program at Western Kentucky University.

By Patti Sawyer

What could make a homeschool mom get up at 4 am, dress in professional clothing, and drive two and a half hours to an 8 am meeting in the next time zone? If you guessed a bad legislative proposal, you are correct!

I recently had the opportunity to speak in the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education about HB 621. The bill appeared on my radar a few weeks prior but didn’t seem to be making progress through the various committee assignments. Then things moved very quickly, and it had two readings and was on the agenda for the Committee for Wednesday, March 5.

The language in the bill that was objectionable was the following, “If a child of compulsory school age who is alleged to be a habitual truant or to be dependent, neglected, or abused seeks to withdraw from a public school to enroll in an at-home private school, the transfer shall not be effective until the proceedings for those allegations have concluded.”

Obviously, the homeschool community is opposed to the abuse and neglect of children. However, it must be noted that in 2023, 89% of cases in Kentucky referred to child protective services were ultimately unsubstantiated. It can sometimes take months to resolve allegations. Telling those parents they cannot withdraw their children to private, at-home education would rob them of the right to homeschool without due process.

Parents have a fundamental right to choose the learning environment that is the best fit for their children. That right sometimes comes under attack by well-intended child advocates or political leaders, and sometimes by those who just think they know better than parents. Homeschooling families must vigilantly defend the right to educate their children according to their own values and methods.

This brings us back to that 4 am wake up, dress up, and drive up to Frankfort. I met with another homeschool mom who has experience navigating the legislature and a lawyer from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. I tentatively placed my name on the list to speak to the committee.

As it turns out, my prepared notes and impassioned speech were not needed. Rep. Savannah Maddox made a plea in a statewide homeschool group on Facebook, and a flood of emails were sent to the Committee. Rep. Emily Callaway offered a substitute bill with the language referring to homeschooling removed, and the bill was approved by the committee.  I was presented with the opportunity to instead thank the committee for changing the bill and expressed that there were no objections from the homeschool community moving forward.

After the successful outcome in the committee, my new friend took the time to introduce me to several legislators, including Rep. Maddox.

It was totally worth getting up at 4 am! I would do it again to let my voice be heard advocating for something I am passionate about. And guess what? You can too!

Patti Sawyer is a homeschooling mother with more than 17 years of experience.