It’s not Gov. DeSantis’ business how we raise our children in Miami. Mind your own, sir | Opinion

Once again, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is using our children — and persecuting a business operation — to push his homophobic, fascist agenda.

This time, it’s not a corporate giant like Disney World he’s seeking to censor for standing with the LGBTQ+ community, but an eight-year-old Miami restaurant — the R House in Wynwood, which enjoys 5-star reviews on Google.

In line with the autocrat he is, DeSantis has unleashed the Department of Business and Professional Regulation on the owners of the restaurant-bar over its popular, rambunctious Sunday brunch drag show.

His excuse to file a complaint alleging the restaurant is a neighborhood nuisance and in violation of its license: Parents are taking children and exposing them to what he views as sexuality and others enjoy as cheesy, laugh-out-loud entertainment.

“Having kids involved in this is wrong,” DeSantis told the media, exaggerating what goes on. “That is not consistent with our law and policy in the state of Florida and it is a disturbing trend in our society to try to sexualize these young people. That is not the way you look out for our children. You protect children, you do not expose them to things that are inappropriate.”

And just like that, el caudillo de Florida declaims — and moves to shut down the show.

He won’t call out Nazis making themselves at home in his Florida. But, he’ll see to it that the R House’s showgirls end up jobless.

READ MORE: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tries to shut down Miami drag show

No champion of ‘parental rights’

But wait…whatever happened to DeSantis’ ballyhooed “parental rights” — used to package, sell and impose his conservative views that gender-identity discussions don’t belong in elementary school, his conservative dogma disguised as civic lessons, and to whitewash Black history lessons in public education?

Looks like his parents-know-best philosophy ends at this Miami show.

But to be a balanced despot-for-all, perhaps next he should move to regulate Republican house parties and Republican-owned restaurants in Miami that feature dance music, are attended by children, and where I’ve seen a lot of public genital grinding, courtesy of heterosexuals.

Sexual acts, by the way, aren’t a feature of the Wynwood drag show, I’m told by people who’ve visited. Raunchy shimming by design, yes. Sexuality in the eyes of the beholder — and only if you live in a bubble and don’t take kids to a Florida beach, where lots of butts hang from diminutive bikinis all day long.

The controversy reminds me of a show I did find disgusting — and the Republicans in my company didn’t even notice: An elementary-age girl, the daughter of country-music loving heterosexuals, performing at a Jacksonville restaurant on karaoke night, singing about holding a cigarette (mimicking it) and a shotgun and waiting for her cheatin’ man to come home.

Conservatives in the audience applauded and encouraged the child acting like a scorned woman.

Maybe DeSantis should condemn that kind of sexing up of children, too?

Drag show not about children

He won’t because the attack on the Miami drag show is about something else: politics.

After Disneygate, I knew DeSantis — and his supporting cast of right-wing censors – would come after others.

The despotically-inclined are seldom satisfied.

After successfully imposing anti-gay and racially-biased morality on public school curriculums and women’s bodies – and now on the midterms campaign trail – DeSantis and company are thirsty for more liberalism to hunt and quash.

They found the perfect target a jubilant showcase of costumed entertainers showing off dance moves, acrobatic skill, singing, and bantering with the public.

Strikingly dolled-up queens strutting make for stunning visuals to drum up election-time outrage from a predisposed voter base. Add unfounded allegations about children being in harms way — and bingo!

“Groomers!” the ignorant shout on social media like a well-trained Greek chorus.

Serving Latin American food since it started in 2014 as part art gallery, part restaurant, R House has existed without eliciting this kind of outrage before. But right-wingers spotted on Tik Tok a video of a Texas drag show where children were filmed giving money to performers, and DeSantis’ people went hunting for the same in the most obvious place, Miami.

Wynwood, an eclectic neighborhood, is a world away from Texas. A restaurant with a drag show is a fit. No, no one is stripping naked in front of children, as DeSantis charges.

Politics of convenience

This issue isn’t about children’s welfare, but about the politics of convenience and party interests over people, including small business owners.

The all-important voters of Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous county and the most Democratic, must be overcooked, a DeSantis specialty.

As he often does, the governor conveniently twists facts in a self-serving attempt to keep Floridians in a state of agitation and fear, believing he’s their only savior, the only messiah of law and order.

The drag show hoopla also comes in handy to confuse voters being asked to choose among a new crop of unknown School Board candidates. It’s not a coincidence that in Miami-Dade unqualified candidates with thin resumes — and no education experience — are touting the governor’s endorsement. They’ll be his beholden tools.

And so, DeSantis and his handlers have honed in on a distraction they can exploit: Men in drag.

No kids aren’t “involved” in the drag show, as DeSantis claims.

But, even if they were in attendance, it’s not DeSantis’ business how we raise our children — whether we choose to expose them to a diverse world or shelter them from modernity.

DeSantis’ views on sexual morality only belong in one place: his home.

When a slim margin of voters elected him in 2018, it wasn’t to turn his opinions on our lifestyles into law — or to mandate what kind of restaurant we, in Miami, decide to patronize with our families.

As the kids like to say when someone oversteps, he’s not the boss of us.