U.S. federal judge tosses out conservative Christian lawsuit against ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’

Christopher Sevier — a man once described as “notorious legal troll with a troubling history of bigotry, violence, and stalking” — has had his lawsuit against “Drag Queen Story Hour” (DQSH) tossed out of court by a U.S. district judge.

Sevier and other conservative Christian activists were trying to sue Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Houston Public Library Executive Director Rhea Lawson for promoting DQSH with taxpayer money. DQSH is a non-profit where local drag queen volunteers read books to kids.

The anti-LGBTQ plaintiffs claimed that DQSH promotes a religion called “secular humanism,” and that, by using tax dollars to create fliers for the program, the city of Houston violated the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment forbidding the establishment of a government religion.

In the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, Sevier and his cohorts wrote, “LGBTQ ideology is immoral, obscene and subversive to human flourishing.” They also claimed the Houston library was “brainwashing the children of Houston.”

“U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal dismissed their lawsuit Thursday for lack of standing and failure to state a viable First Amendment Establishment Clause claim,” reports Courthouse News. Rosenthal said Sevier’s taxpayer status doesn’t give him any standing to sue the city for spending a meager amount to make fliers for DQSH.

Rosenthal had previously rejected the group’s filing for an injunction to stop DQSH events last October.

The lawsuit was supported by The Campaign for Houston PAC, the group that helped successfully overturn the trans-inclusive Houston Equal Rights Ordinance in 2015. The PAC spent millions airing commercials against DQSH in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, hoping to link Democrats to the library program.

Related: Christian woman terrifies kids when she crashes children’s story time to yell anti-gay slurs

As we’ve mentioned before, Sevier once tried to sue Apple computers for not filtering out porn on their laptops. He also tried to sue President Obama after A&E canceled the reality show Duck Dynasty.

In September 2018, we wrote of Sevier: “He’s also been charged with stalking a 17-year-old girl, assaulting his father-in-law in an attack that sent his 7-month-old son to the emergency room, and attempting to forcibly abduct his son. He’s barred from contacting his own child now.”

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