President Joe Biden’s State Department is funding 12 “drag theater performances” in Ecuador as part of a grant worth more than $20,000 to “promote diversity and inclusion,” Fox News revealed.
The grant was awarded to El Centro Ecuatoriano Norteamericano, a non-profit cultural center set up to teach English and bolster U.S.-Ecuador relations, according to its website.
The grant for drag performances was part of the State Department’s “public policy programs,” which aims to support national interests and security by “influencing foreign publics” and “strengthening” their relationship with the U.S., according to USASpending.gov.
Also funded by the grant are three “workshops” and the production of a two-minute documentary, according to USASpending.gov.
The Department of State has awarded the cultural center 20 grants totaling $664,938 since 2009, that website also shows. The grants have largely funded renovations, equipment, and English classes and programs.
The website states that the grant-funded activities run from Sept. 30 through Aug. 31, 2023. Nothing drag-related has been posted to the cultural center’s Facebook page so far.
The State Department doled out almost $129 million to public diplomacy programs in the 2021 fiscal year, according to SAM.gov.
Biden has also been promoting “diversity and inclusion” in his own administration. In June, he signed an executive order requiring “chief diversity officers” in every federal agency.
One of those new diversity officers is currently under Defense Department investigation for allegedly anti-white tweets.
This summer, the U.S. Air Force canceled a “Drag Queen Story Time” event for young children after a senator called it “completely insane” and a “gross abuse of taxpayer funding to place children in a sexualized environment.”
