'Drag Race' Star BenDeLaCreme Says Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation Aims to Take U.S. Back to Pre-Stonewall Days

The accomplished drag queen called legislative attacks on the LGBTQ+ community a distraction from issues like gun safety

RuPaul's Drag Race star BenDeLaCreme, 41, is speaking up about the political attacks on the drag community.

As anti-LGBTQ+ laws sweep the nation, drag performers like BenDeLaCreme — whose off-stage name is Benjamin Putnam — are at the center of the discourse. Conservative lawmakers have attempted to paint all drag as unfit for family-friendly events, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who described a recent bill he signed as legislation that would "protect children from sexually explicit adult performances in all venues — including drag shows and strip clubs."

Related: Anti-Drag Legislation Is Sweeping the Nation: Here's Where Each State Stands on Drag Bans

In a recent episode of the iHeartPodcast show Hello Isaac, Putnam commented on the conservative rhetoric, revealing the discrepancy between the way people treat celebrated comedians like Eddie Murphy — who has performed sexually explicit sets and also acted in children's movies — and drag queens.

“We understand that Eddie Murphy can do Raw and then he can do Daddy Day Care and we aren't afraid that he's gonna tell one of those jokes to these children in the audience," he said to host Isaac Mizrahi. "And it just feels like such an obvious comparison that it is wild to me that all these people assume that, because we sometimes have an adult sensibility in front of other adults, that we are not capable of adjusting.”

Putnam, who competed as BenDeLaCreme on the sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race and the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars, said he thinks the anti-LGBTQ+ incursions are a political ploy to distract the public.

“They are absolutely trying to distract from gun control and I think that they absolutely want laws to go pre-Stonewall again," he said. "We just overturned Roe v. Wade. They're chipping away at it bit by bit. It's reproductive rights, it's LGBTQIA+ rights.”

Related: Charlize Theron Warns She'll 'F--- Anybody Up' Who Comes for Drag Queens: 'We're in Your Corner'

The American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S., many of which would ban or censor performances like drag shows. The bills advance in state legislatures as LGBTQ+ people face rising threats to their safety and right-wing groups continue to protest family-friendly activities like drag queen story hours.

The ACLU has described the slew of anti-drag measures as "a malicious attempt to remove LGBTQ people from public life" and say the bans "are being fueled by the same paranoia banning books and censoring teachers."

Read about where each state stands on anti-drag legislation here.

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