A decision by a PBS station in Oklahoma to promote a drag queen – and that related ideology – to children has prompted the governor to block funding for its operations.
Unless the legislature overrides the decision, the station likely will be halting operations, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
The report said Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, responded to the station’s ideology for kids with a decision to block funding through 2026.
Among the concerns cited was that “Clifford The Big Red Dog” features lesbian parents and “Let’s Learn” featured a book titled, “The Hips on the Drag Queen go Swish, Swish, Swish” that was being read by “Lil Miss Hot Mess.”
Stitt told Fox News, “OETA, to us, is an outdated system. You know, the big, big question is why are we spending taxpayer dollars to prop up or compete with the private sector and run television stations?”
His statement cited the “indoctrination and over-sexualization of our children,” calling it “really problematic.”
He also criticized a feature that included parents’ support for gender-changing treatments for transgender children, such as chemicals that block puberty. Other, more extreme, treatments include body-mutilation surgeries on children.
He said the so-called “education” benefit of such shows is questionable.
“When you think about educating kids, let’s teach them to read and their numbers and counting and letters and those kind of things,” he told the Daily Mail. “I mean, some of the programming that we’re seeing… it just doesn’t need to be on public television.”
He added, “I’m just tired of using taxpayer dollars for some person’s agenda. I represent the taxpayers. There’s so much television, there’s so much media. Maybe in 1957 you could have made an argument that you needed a public television station. That’s totally outdated at this point.”
He said, “All those towers and our communications, that’s all owned by the state and whether we continue to fund an outdated public television station with taxpayer dollars, or we let the free market work, we’re still going to have the same capabilities, the same assets, the same towers.”
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.