The Fanaticism of the Iowa Christian Nationalist Nanny State
My Grandparents Generation Had It Right!
Meet Julien Eltinge
Let me take you on a trip back in time. Travel back with me about 100 years ago. The era is that of my grandparent’s generation. They were young and just starting their families in the 1910s and 1920s. It was the beginning of the mass entertainment industry and in those days that meant the king of entertainment…Vaudeville.
Millions of Americans went to vaudeville shows presented in thousands of theaters in all parts of the country. Yes, my grandparent’s generation had to leave their homes and travel to a theater to be entertained. Theaters in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Sioux City, Omaha and other cities in Iowa were part of the famous vaudeville “Orpheum Circuit.” It was a common experience for that generation since radio was yet to come.
One of the greatest vaudeville entertainers of that time was a “female impersonator” by the name of Julien Eltinge. Today we would call him a drag performer.
The performing art known as drag has a long and rich tradition. In early Western theatre, male actors always portrayed female characters due to prohibitions against women performing on stage. However, beginning in the 17th century, women began to be allowed on stage to portray most female roles. However, men continued to play some female roles but began to take on a more “comical tone, satirizing female characteristics.” The men who played these roles began to be known as female impersonators. By the early 20th Century, drag performances exploded in popularity especially as vaudeville became available to all classes, and drag performance was led by the greatest American female impersonator, Julian Eltinge.
Eltinge was born in 1881 and was by far the most popular female impersonator of his era. He was known for his ability to capture the essence of feminine mannerisms. Eltinge honed this talent by performing in drag regularly as a teenager. His routine was to play a female character on stage with unsuspecting viewers believing that he was a woman. Then he would shock the audience at the end of the show by revealing himself to be a man.
The genuineness of his feminine performance set him apart from other female impersonators and gained him significant popularity. Eltinge showcased his talents in vaudeville and made his debut on Broadway in 1904. In 1914 he headed to Hollywood to star in silent film versions of his Broadway hits as well as 'The Isle of Love' with Rudolph Valentino.
My grandparents loved Eltinge’s drag performance. Maybe it was because my grandmother’s brothers (the Pearson Brothers) were also vaudeville entertainers and appeared on stage with Eltinge on several ocassions. (Look for my forthcoming book about the Pearson Brothers in 2025).
What distinguished Eltinge from his contemporaries was his refusal to be a caricature of a woman; instead of satarizing womanhood, he presented a seamless illusion of actually being a woman. So convincing was he, women, even knowing Eltinge was male, would write letters to him asking for beauty advice. He even started his own line of makeup and an advice column for women seeking to become more feminine.
Vaudeville was considered family entertainment, including drag performances. Nothing was allowed on the stage (most of the time) that would be considered lewd or sexually inappropriate. American families, including the children, attended vaudeville performances and inevitably encountered such female drag performers. It was common and accepted by my grandparents’ generation.
The Iowa Christian Nationalist Nannies
Why do I bring this story up in the context of the Christian Nationalist Nanny state?Well, here is another throwback in time for you:
Remember the good ol’ days when conservatives used to rail against the imposition of the left-wing, progressive “Nanny-state?” You know those insidious liberal policies like banning cigarette smoke in public, mandatory bicycle helmets, and banning sugary soft drinks. These were for conservatives, a gross overreach of governmental power. It didn’t comport well with their “limited government” conservatism.
There is in politics a theory called “Horseshoe” politics. This idea asserts that advocates of the far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear continuum of the political spectrum, closely resemble each other, in the same way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together.
The horseshoe theory brings me to Skylar Wheeler (IA, R, state representative, Sioux County) and his fellow Christian Nationalists who have been steadily creating a vast, right-wing, religious Nanny State over Iowa the past eight years.
Wheeler, a flaming Christian Nationalist, has now proposed a bill in the Iowa house to make it a felony for any adult to bring a minor to a drag show.
My grandparents would be appalled.
Consider: if you wanted to take your 9 year old to a book read at the local library where the readers were in drag, you would be committing a class-D felony in the State of Iowa.
Why is there a need for such a bill, you ask….it is because Skylar Wheeler believes that “drag shows are inappropriate for children.” And because Skylar believes it to be so, the whole state needs to abide by his religious-cultural-ideological standards. It is another element of the Christian Nanny state once again being imposed on all Iowans.
House Study Bill 158
There are so many problems with this proposed bill it is hard to know where to start. The proposal, House Study Bill 158, defines a drag show as a performance primarily where the performer "exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth" by their clothing, makeup, accessories or other features. The prohibition applies whether the performer sings, lip-syncs, dances, reads or "performs for entertainment," regardless of whether they receive payment.
This statement is a dead giveaway. It isn’t really about some guys who like to dress up like women and wear makeup. This has been going on in every generation since time immemorial. One only needs to watch Turner Classic movies to see men crossdressing in films.
What Skylar is really worried about is “gender identity.” The Christian Nationalist obsession with how people view their own sexual and gender identities seems to have no limit for people like Wheeler. I’ll be honest. It is getting to be just a little bit creepy.
The penalty under this bill is hefty. Violators would be guilty of a class “D” felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine between $1,025 and $10,245. However, a parent or legal guardian of a minor who allow their child to view a drag show could bring civil action between $10,000 and $50,000 for each violation.
Wait, so Skylar wants to punish parents more severely who take their teenagers to a drag show than a non-parent? What ever happened to parental rights? Don’t parents get to make this decision for their children, and not the state? And certainly not a Christian Nationalist fanatic like Skylar Wheeler.
The Bait-N-Switch Language
This is where the deception comes in…wait for it...
These bills that restrict, ban or in some way tell parents what they can’t do, are being done in the name of “parental rights.” It is a classic bait-n-switch with language. Yes, they are taking away your parental rights in order to “protect” your parental rights. Did you get that? The Christian Nationalists are promoting these nanny state bills as part of a so-called “parent’s rights” movement.
What this bill and others like it do in reality is strip rights from parents and give it to the state. Without saying it, people like Skylar Wheeler and Governor Reynolds who support such nonsense, are obliquely redefining the state as the “parent.” That is the switch…parent’s rights equal the state’s right to determine what parents can or cannot do.
This ideology fits neatly with the Christian Nationalist agenda. Christian Nationalists are above everything else…nationalists who trust the nation-state (that is, when they are in charge of it). When they are in charge, the state is the Savior to protect them from all forms of evil, real or imagined. It is the same statist philosophy that conservatives blame liberals for promoting. And there you have the horseshoe. The left-wing nanny state isn’t that much different than the right-wing nanny state.
This is part of the bait-n-switch tactic that is so common among religious nationalists. “We don’t want no liberal nanny state, but we love having a Christian one.” This policy requires an inevitable shifting of rights and power away from the people (parents) to the government. However, the state as the “parent” protects us from ourselves in ways that are unnecessary and detrimental to moral freedom. It diminishes freedom, not expand it.
This isn’t small-government conservatism, no, not at all; it is heavy-handed religous authoritarianism.
Christian Nationalist Nanny State “Infantilizes” The Public
What separates nanny-state nationalism from other movements that believe in reasonable regulation, such as traditional conservatism, is the impulse to infantilize the public. Christian Nationalists are willing to sacrifice the God-given rights of parents, reducing parents to children, because the “godly” government leaders know what is best for them.
Therefore, if Skylar Wheeler believes that drag shows are inappropriate for children, he can act as the “Christian Nationalist Nanny state-parent” and impose his belief on the rest of us for “our own good.” It is the modern version of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony revisited. Welcome to 1630 colonial New England.
But Skylar, what if I’m a parent who doesn’t believe that gender is binary, and that science supports the idea of gender fluidity? Don’t I get to choose for my child what best fits their tendency and trajectory? After all, I know my child way better than you do.
“No matter, God’s word says…blah, b-blah, b-blah!”
Skylar, you seem really concerned about “sexualizing or grooming” kids by taking them to a drag show. I can assure you that by letting your children watch the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders on Sunday afternoon, they are getting way more sexualized messages than at a drag show.
And Governor Reynolds, what if as a parent I want to seek gender affirming care for my teenage child who is struggling with their sexual identity? Gender affirming care has been shown to improve the quality of life for those who struggle with gender identity. Shouldn’t I as a parent have the right to make that determination and not the Iowa Christian Nationalist Nanny State?
No, Kim? You say you “know better, and you are protecting my children because I don’t know what I’m doing?”
Parents in Iowa should not fall for the bait-n-switch of the Christian Nationalists and give up their parental authority. Beware the politicians who tell you they are taking away your freedom for your own good. Reynolds, Wheeler and the rest of them are trying to do just that.
It was Reinhold Neibuhr who observed, “The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.” He is correct.
What the Republican Christian Nationalists in Iowa are doing is fanatical. It isn’t reasoned policy, but knee-jerk, cultural-religious warriorism rooted in the desire for power and control. Iowans are going to have to take these matters into their own hands and find representatives (from either party) who will legislate for all Iowans, not just a radical subset of religious fanatics.
We should listen to the voice of our grandparents…in them is wisdom and common sense.
Long live Julien Eltinge!
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Amen! The same thing is true with the School for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa. They don't want any other kind of diversity, but they do want intellectual diversity.
Oh boy. I bet he grew up watching Mrs Doubtfire and Church Lady. I wonder if I'd get arrested for watching Pee Wee's Playhouse with.my grandkids last week?
YET they embrace every gutteral word that comes from der vater...a convicted sex offender...and praise him like the Jesus they claim to follow. Wait till Mr Wheeler finds out Clarence Thomas wears a black dress to work!!!