The president of a California chapter of Moms for Liberty made headlines this week after a video surfaced of her freaking out in front of a drag queen in a hotel lobby.
Beth Bourne, president of the right-wing group’s Yolo County chapter, was at the Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, when she spotted the group of performers. Among them was Marina Del Rey, a Hawaii native who was scheduled to perform at a drag brunch event at the resort.
Del Rey began recording Bourne, who recorded herself in shaky footage insulting the group, calling their outfits “degrading” and suggesting they were misogynistic.
While on vacation in Hawaii, Karen becomes livid when she sees a drag queen in the lobby of a Pride Celebration brunch.
Most mainland haoles are unaware that the mahu have been an integral and accepted part of Polynesian society for hundreds of years. pic.twitter.com/FvGcroXbGh
— StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻 (@StrictlyChristo) 24 June 2024
“Are you in the hotel? Are you dressed up? Are you a man? Are you a man pretending to be a woman?” Bourne peppered the queens with questions. “What do you think about my son, who might think he can put on makeup, dress up, wear high heels, cut off his penis and take estrogen to grow these fake breasts?”
Bourne added: “I paid to be a customer at a hotel where I think they believe in the existence of women.”
When hotel staff try to escort them out, Bourne calls the police.
Her cries for police were heard shortly afterward, when police arrived at the hotel to escort her off the property, according to two social media posts from Del Rey and Bourne following the bizarre incident.
“I’m not here to judge them, incite hatred against them, or call them names – I’m here to remind you that worse things happen to many every day and that the ugliness of it happens regardless of where, why, how, etc. … Even in the lobby of your hotel,” Del Rey wrote in her post.
Bourne posted her view of the situation and her subsequent contact with the police on her X account.
Notes from Waikiki, HI:
I do not agree with children being exposed to drag queens. Several other guests at the Alohilani Hotel told me they also found it offensive, so I spoke to the manager about it yesterday.
I was briefly detained by @honolulupolicemy hotel costs were reimbursed and I have no… pic.twitter.com/LDoq7MEOQr
– Beth Bourne (@bourne_beth2345) 24 June 2024
“I do not agree with children being exposed to drag queens,” she wrote. “Several other guests at the Alohilani Hotel told me they also found it offensive, so I spoke to the manager yesterday.”
“I was briefly detained by the Honolulu police, had my hotel expenses reimbursed, and do not regret speaking out.”
Bourne, a program manager at UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies, was condemned in a statement from her university on Tuesday.
“We are aware of a widely shared video in which a university employee makes a series of offensive statements,” the university wrote in the statement. “We condemn these statements as deeply hurtful. While the employee’s comments are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, they do not reflect the values of respect and belonging that are the foundation of our campus community.”
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