Admin of controversial page speaks | News, Sports, Jobs – Minot Daily News
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On June 20, The Facebook page, Protect North Dakota Kids, published a post announcing an intention to form a nonprofit, with Keith Hapip Jr. as executive director.
A native of Bismarck, Hapip lives in Washburn with his wife and family, working as a paramedic, and was recently elected to the city commission. Hapip made it clear he speaks only for himself, and not the other anonymous creators of the page, or the individuals following it.
Hapip pointed toward larger trends happening across the country in opposition to programming and curriculum promoting and affirming LGBTQ+ lifestyles to children as the impetus for starting the page. Events like drag queen story hour, all-ages drag shows and books with LGBTQ+-affirming content have been fodder for the participants of the culture war all over the country, and Protect North Dakota Kids is one of many such groups to crop up recently.
“Why do we have grown men dressed as women, wearing basically no clothing, dancing around accepting dollar bills from children? It’s just such a crazy thing,” Hapip said.
He cited a particular all-ages show in Texas that caused controversy after images appeared online showing children watching a drag queen performance with a sign behind them saying, “It’s not going to lick itself,” as the “larger spark” behind the decision to begin their crusade. After the 2021 all-ages performance at the Capitol for that year’s Pride, the local drag queen community came to his attention, leading to the posts connecting their stage personas to their legal identities.
“Our mission statement is in accordance with Ephesians 5:11, ‘to expose what is evil and stand for what is good, so to expose that which we would see as something that would be against God’s law or sin,’” Hapip said, “By faith in Christ alone, you can be saved. That’s our primary message, the gospel, but also to oppose that which is evil.”
Hapip disagreed with the accusations of doxxing being leveled against him and PNDK.
“It’s not exactly fair because it sets the bar extremely low for what doxxing would be,” Hapip said.“I’ve been on the internet for a very long time. Doxxing has always been personal details that would not be easily available online. So, home address, phone number, spouse’s name.”
As Hapip sees it, doxxing involves greater actions, like directly contacting employers, or seeking out data that can’t be found with just a simple Google search. He feels that by only circulating images of the performers in and out of drag and the city they live in, the Facebook page is not violating any privacy laws, rules or unofficial internet ethics. He also pointed out how accessible and available the information and content could be.
“If that qualifies as doxxing, then every single one of these shows has also doxxed the performers. Doxxing is actually not even a crime. So, I mean, would we do that to try and harm someone? No, absolutely not,” Hapip said.
Hapip claimed that despite thousands of reports and claims of hate speech, bullying and harassment against the PNDK page, nothing posted by it has been taken down or removed by Facebook for violating any rules. The page’s detractors primary concern over the posts with the drag queen’s information is that they could potentially incite violence upon the performers.
“Obviously we’re breaking some sort of social contract that people think is there, but you know, stop grooming children, would be my response to that,” said Hapip.
Despite receiving threats online, Stacy Sturm, the owner of URL Radio and the organizer of the all-ages drag shows, put out a call for critics or members of the public to contact her to share their concerns.
“The page stirred up concern from some people. I offered to start a conversation to get input and concerns,” Sturm said.
“She was getting a lot of pushbacks in Bismarck. There were different groups operating to really push back against all-ages drag shows happening in Bismarck,” Hapip said. “Because of that she threw down the gauntlet, and I was like ‘Okay I’ll do that.’”
Hapip and Sturm appeared in a since deleted livestreamed debate. Only a few seconds of this stream exist online in an edited clip currently pinned to the PNDK page, but Sturm recalled the conversation as very unproductive. From Sturm’s perspective, despite the page’s claims of wanting to “protect” children, their actions actually harmed LGBTQ+ youth.
“The Trevor Project says that gay teens are 40% more likely to avoid suicide with at least one friend,” Sturm said. “I had numbers and statistics; he had Bible verses. His problem is with gay kids. He thinks you can pray the gay away. They’re actually harming kids with what they do, not helping them or parents get any help.”
Minot-based drag queen Kara Fiyera attempted to communicate publicly and privately with Hapip before he revealed his involvement, but found the gap between their worldviews intractable.
“I left my bullies in high school. We are most afraid of things that we don’t understand. Their group doesn’t understand what Drag is and what the quote unquote Gay Agenda actually is. And I don’t understand them. Like, I was raised Lutheran, and I went to church. I get it,” Fiyera said. “They’re cherry picking the Bible, which on its own is gross, to attack a group of people that is already not the safest group of people.”
The North Dakota LGBTQ+ communities shifted their focus to Hapip after he outed himself, finally having an actual human being to associate with PNDK and its activities.
With some basic Googling, his critics were able to discover he had a side business selling woodworking projects online and at local downtown Bismarck small businesses. Multiple retailers made social media posts dissociating themselves from Hapip, saying that they would no longer be selling his wares. The activists’ efforts to turn the heat up on Hapip in retaliation also began to escalate.
“There’s been people posting my address. There’s been people contacting my employer, the State EMT board, the Washburn City Commission. They’ve called and emailed the city. Basically, everything I could be externally connected with,” Hapip said. “I don’t care. I love Jesus. I’m going to take a stand for him and I’m going to have my opinions.”
He described the pressure he’s receiving from the drag community as “intimidation.” When asked if there was any confliction on his part for putting other small business owners on blast in the way he did, Hapip indicated he didn’t have any, admitting that his post probably sent more business their way than anything else.
“If you’re going to publicly support something, you should publicly defend your support of something. If you’re going to put your neck out there, don’t be surprised if people ask questions about it, which is all we simply did. We just ask the question, ‘Why are all these businesses supporting all-ages drag shows on the Capitol steps?’”
The conflict between the two groups shows no signs of abating, with both redoubling their efforts to expose and deter the other. In the weeks that followed, Protect North Dakota Kids honed in on other drag performances in other cities that would be open to all ages, which has only fanned the flame wars erupting in its comment sections.
Hapip says the group plans to file paperwork to formalize the formation of its organization sometime around October, with a blog, podcast, and other projects in the works for the future.