On July 8 2021, Dinesh D’Souza tweeted and published a Rumble.com video with “SF Gay Men’s Chorus Literally Sings ‘We’re Coming for Your Children'”:
As previously indicated, Rumble.com videos are pre-packaged with an un-skippable advertisement, discouraging viewers from examining content before sharing it. Based on Trendolizer.com’s top posts forJuly 8 2021, viewers engaged with and shared D’Souza’s post.
D’Souza — in keeping with his general pattern of pushing disinformation — barely bothered to contextualize the video on that site, writing:
Yes, they literally sang this.
In this context, D’Souza referenced the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Other social media users repeated the claim and expressed the same panicked sentiment:
D’Souza’s titular claim was that the SF Gay Men’s Chorus sang about “coming for your children,” and the tweet above referenced “‘converting’ the children of conservatives. (This appears to be an attempt to link QAnon’s “Save Our Children” to current far right attempts to ignite broader culture wars.)
A July 7 2021 item on ThePostMillennial.com, “‘We’re coming for your children’: San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus pushes woke agenda,” claimed:
In honor of Pride Month this past June, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus released a song outlining how they’ll “convert your children.”
The song, titled “A Message From the Gay Community,” mocks parents that fear the push of the LGBTQ agenda in today’s media, with the song claiming that parents wouldn’t be able to protect their kids from the advances and ideas of the group, Not The Bee reported.
At the time of publishing, the video has now been made unavailable on YouTube.
[…]
One person wrote in the YouTube comment section … “And just like that, victim status is revoked.”
That piece made reference to the lyrics for the song, “A Message From the Gay Community.” Genius.com provided all lyrics, and they began:
You think we’re sinful
You fight against our rights
You say we all lead live you can’t respect
But you’re just frightened
You think that we’ll corrupt your kids
If our agenda goes unchecked
Funny, just this once, you’re correctWe’ll convert your children
Happens bit by bit
Quietly and subtlely
And you will barely notice it
You can keep them from disco
Warn about San Francisco
Make ’em wear pleated pants
We don’t care…
We’ll convert your children…
We’ll make them tolerant and fair
Subsequent lines from the song made the manner in which it was leveraged to misrepresent its actual content even more clear:
We’ll convert your children
Reaching one and all
There’s really no escaping it
’cause even grandma likes Rupaul
And the world’s getting kinder
Gen Z’s gayer than Grindr
Learn to love
Learn to vogue
Face your fate!
We’ll convert your children
Someone’s gotta teach them not to hate
After that, the chorus sang:
We’re coming for them
We’re coming for your children
We’re coming for them
We’re coming for them
We’re coming for your children
For your children[Your] children will care about
Fairness and justice for others
Your children will work to convert
All their sisters and brothers
Then, soon, we’re almost certain
You’re kids will start convertin’ you!The gay agenda is coming home
The gay agenda is here!But you don’t have to worry
’cause there’s nothing wrong with
Standing by our side
Get on board in a hurry
Because the world always needs
A bit more pride
It concluded with lines about making allies of anti-gay people:
Come on, try a little pride!
We’ll convert your children
Then we’ll turn to you
Giving up the fear inside
Is freeing like you never knew!Go and see San Francisco!
Go and turn up that disco!
You’ll forget you were ever upset
We’ll convert your children
And make an ally of you yet!
We’ll make an ally of you yet!
We’ll make an ally of you yet!
Predictably, repeat disinformation purveyors like Dinesh D’Souza presented the SF Gay Men’s Chorus song out of context, highlighting “we’re coming for your children” and “we’ll convert your children” without transcribing the totality of lyrics.
“Someone’s gotta teach them not to hate” and “your children will care about fairness and justice for others” were impossible-to-miss aspects of the “convert” and “coming for” lines, the clear and present punchline to a joke about the “gay agenda.” In this instance, it was impossible not to hear the meaning of the song — deceptively (and clearly deliberately) subverted by hyperpartisan social media personalities in support of a broader, exclusionary agenda.