Ted Cruz Calls Sam Smith and Kim Petras “Evil” as Right Spreads Satanic Panic Conspiracies

The post Ted Cruz Calls Sam Smith and Kim Petras “Evil” as Right Spreads Satanic Panic Conspiracies appeared first on Consequence.

Following Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of “Unholy” at the 2023 Grammy Awards, Senator Ted Cruz called the artists”evil” and conservatives flooded social media with Satanic panic and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

Smith, who is nonbinary, and Petras, a transgender woman, performed their international smash hit “Unholy” in moody red lighting, with Smith dressed like the display window in a Spirit Halloween while centered in a circle of dancers who looked like they’d just stepped out of the television in The Ring. Afterwards he threw it back to Petras, writhing suggestively inside a cage in front of a fiery backdrop.

“This… is… evil,” Cruz wrote on Twitter, the ellipses perhaps representing the breaks he took to consume more pornography. His post was a re-tweet from conservative commenter and former OANN presenter Liz Wheeler, famed for having the kind of brain you normally find in an aquarium. “Demons are teaching your kids to worship Satan,” she wrote. “I could throw up.”

Other right-wing blowhards called the performance “literally a tribute to Satan,” and “The Devil. Brought to you by Pfizer.” This last was a reference to one of the advertisers for the Grammys, whose brand was showcased after “Unholy” but before the show cut to commercial. Cruz himself jumped on the anti-vaccine crazy train, calling the brand placement “truth in advertising.”

Whether you think Smith and Petras were literally engaging in devil worship (they weren’t), it’s no coincidence that conservatives targeted the nonbinary and transgendered performers on a night when other artists literally parodied the Last Supper. Anti-trans sentiments have been expressed by all of the likely 2024 Republican presidential nominees, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who passed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” bill, and former President Donald Trump, who last week said he would work against “the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.”

Petras did not specifically mention the hateful rhetoric facing the trans community, but during her and Smith’s award acceptance speech for Best Solo Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Unholy,” she did reference some of the obstacles that trans people face, while thanking the “incredible transgender legends before me who kicked these doors open for me so I could be here tonight,” allies like Madonna “for fighting for LGBTQ+ rights,” as well as her own mother, who “believed me that I was a girl, and I wouldn’t be here without her and her support.”

For more Grammy coverage, check out the full list of winners and our live blog.

Ted Cruz Calls Sam Smith and Kim Petras “Evil” as Right Spreads Satanic Panic Conspiracies
Wren Graves

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