An embattled metaphysical shop on the North Side is under attack again.
A far-right North Texas coalition plans to “peacefully” march outside 3-year-old Higher Purpose Emporium’s annual Pride fair on Sat, Oct 26.
Local right-wing rage manufacturer Carlos Turcios recently posted (comma splices, dependent clauses, pronoun-antecedent disagreement and all), “Higher Purpose Emporium, which is a Fort Worth witch pagan store, is hosting a Pride costume party that will have children. They are a safe ‘Temple to Hekate,’ which promotes ‘witchcraft,’ and will have an adult after-party. This does not look ‘kid-friendly.’ ”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Turcios is conflating the truth. There are two separate events at Higher Purpose on Oct 26: one for parents and their children early, the other for adults only later.
Higher Purpose owner Ivy Aranaught believes the fair is “important — I see so many people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community who are also part of the witchy/pagan community crossover come in feeling so ostracized and like they don’t belong. Very few of us have supportive family, and this provides a place where everyone can celebrate this part of them they so often have to keep private.”
It would not be the first time far-right grievance actors like Turcios and the poorly named Coalition for Texas Kids in Lewisville have lied to promote hate and bully vulnerable communities. It’s now a great constant, the entire snowflake sector emboldened by the 2024 Republican presidential candidate who’s also an adjudicated rapist (found liable of rape by a jury of his peers), who has been charged with 88 felony counts across four criminal investigations and has already been found guilty of 34, a felon who attempted to overthrow the government after losing the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden by 7 million votes, and who divides us with sexist, racist, bigoted rhetoric.
“Having rainbows and letting queer youth exist is not sexualizing them,” Aranaught recently posted. “Read a book. Go outside. Something because WOW.”
The kid portion of the fair, she continued, is “so that kiddos can be around people who won’t judge them for having little crushes on the same sex or wanting to dress in ways they may get bullied for, just to show them that despite the overwhelming amount of people out there who show them otherwise, it’s OK to be however they want to and that there are safe people in this city. Also, it’s super-fun.”
According only to Fox News, Newsmax, and every other far-right propagandist, the country is overrun with gays trying to seduce our children or beat them at sports. The desperation is palpable. To counter real, material accusations of racism, the right-wing media apparatus and its grimy little shit-stirrers gin up exceedingly rare instances of crimes against children by the LGBTQ+ community because conservatives know the only kind of person arguably “worse” than a racist like them is a pedophile. #desperation
Do Fox, Newsmax, the National Review, Wall Street Journal, or New York Post also denounce the thousands of Catholic priests who have molested hundreds of thousands of children, mostly boys, since records were kept starting in the 1950s? Of course not. That would not gibe with the far-right’s message that all queers are high-heeled, high-wigged, sequined predators prowling school halls and locker rooms looking to hook up or wrestle. Or read a book together.
No evidence suggests LGBTQ+ people commit sexual predation at a rate greater than the general population. As of early 2024, there has been only one verified instance of a drag queen assaulting a minor in Texas. Over the past couple of years alone, the number of Texas Christian pastors harming children is in the double digits.
Targeting the LGBTQ+ community is also dangerous. A new FBI study indicates that hate crimes against the minority group have risen sharply since 2022, despite the fact that the Biden-Harris administration has brought violent crime down to near a 50-year low. The FBI says 2,936 incidents were related to sexual-orientation and gender-identity bias in 2023, an increase of 8.6% from about 2,700 in 2022.
“I know this can be so dangerous,” Aranaught said, “but I have spent a lot of life hiding, and I know others have, too, and enough is enough. I’m not backing down. We aren’t doing anything illegal or harmful. … There is no reason for others to be policing what some people do in their private life, and I think it’s important to show fascists and extremists that we do in fact exist and we aren’t afraid of their Bible or their weird cult of personality.”
Aranaught said that at her Pride fair two years ago, she was threatened with a gun as she stood next to a 12-year-old. “I was mostly upset that that little girl had to see that. This year? I’m absolutely amazed at the amount of support that is coming, and we are ready to make it really hard for them to interfere.”
Along with being held at gunpoint and routine protests outside her door, Aranaught recently had to deal with possible discrimination from an insurance giant. In August, Nationwide denied coverage to Higher Purpose based on an adjuster’s negative feelings about the occult.
Being under duress constantly has only amped up her resolve. She continues soldiering on “because we have to. Sure, I could pack up and move the store, but I truly believe we aren’t going to change anything unless we fight this — peacefully and just by existing without apology and to honor those wonderful POC and other LGBTQ+ activists who paved the way before us. Their sacrifices absolutely cannot be in vain.”
