That was the case on Sunday afternoon, when about 100 people gathered in the heat to protest allegations of children’s sexual “grooming.”

It might have made a little sense for the air to cool down on Sunday morning, when history tells us that a real grooming took place. But that afternoon that was not the case, especially for anything other than this issue.

Protesters, organized by the Bridge Christian Church, gathered outside the Bookmans store on the northwest side to protest Drug Story Hour, which was being held in a secret location at the time. They held up signs that read things like “Bookmans treats kids with drugs.”

BookmansLocal bookstore chain The Bridge has hosted Drug Story Hour many times in the past, but had to postpone the event to March when it was originally planned because protests instigated by The Bridge made the event potentially dangerous. President Sean Feeney said at the time:. All over the country, members of the right-wing fight club “Proud Boys” suspend resemble eventintimidating participants and organizers.

After the March postponement, a group of local congregations gathered to help organize the Bookmans event. As a result, this time, instead of holding it at a Bookmans store, it was a public event for RSVP only at a place open to participants only.

It turned out to be in St. Francis of the Foothills United Methodist Church near North Swan Road and East River Road.

“The decision was made before I came here, and I fully agree with it,” the church’s new pastor, Reverend Michael Wilkerson, told me. “This is an open, positive congregation.”

Beyond the complicated registration process, Wilkerson said security guards were on site to protect attendees. About 60 people showed up, probably 40 percent of them were children.

Wilkerson said the performers, dressed in top hats, suits, make-up and tails, read three stories, all about inclusion and tolerance.

“There was no sexual innuendo of any kind,” he said.

From the beginning, the protests made little sense. Bookmans has hosted these events over the years with no known ill effects.

In theory, the store could have let a child wander into a Drug Story Hour session without a parent and watch it alone. But what harm would that do to the child? And on Sunday, the child would not have been able to attend this event without a parent.

So why would anyone protest? Parents have the right to think differently than members of The Bridge or other conservative evangelical churches.

Kimberly McAllister, wife of David McAllister, senior pastor of The Bridge, told radio host Garrett Lewis in March. She and her friends started protesting.

She claimed that Bookman’s Drag Story Hour represented “grooming.”

“They just want to impose adult agendas on children,” she says.

But let’s be real. This is part of the political push for a larger culture war. In a backlash against changing societal norms regarding sexual identity and gender expression, some conservative Christians are fabricating reasons for their hatred. They allege that sexual minorities are trying to raise or victimize their children as transgender or gay.

Drugs aren’t for everyone. I’ve been to the performances a few times, but I never bothered to go see them, and if my kids were younger, I probably wouldn’t have taken them.

But I should have the right to do so without threats or intimidation and without going through complicated registration processes to access secret sites. With this group’s favorite phrases, we can be ‘Mama Bear’ and ‘Papa Bear’ to our children. No need to meddle with children.

However, there is a particular annoyance here. The opposition of church activists like The Bridge feels very much like a projection.

If there’s one place we’ve seen “grooming,” it’s the church. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church is notorious as a shelter for abusers. In 2004, the Tucson Parish became the second parish in the nation to file for bankruptcy protection. As a result of the verdict in a sexual abuse case.

But Protestant churches have long been dens of sexual abusers, sometimes acting as their protectors. Research on the Southern Baptist Convention Abuses were repeated across a network of churches, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, and abusers were found to be protected.

In one Southern Baptist case, Tucson’s East Side Baptist youth pastor Chris DeKea was sentenced to 79 years in prison in 2009 for sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl.

Another large denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bishop of Cochise County Directed Not to Report Ongoing Sexual Assaults Against Children By Church member Paul Douglas Adams.

But at least the boards of these megacities have reluctantly begun to take the issue seriously in recent decades, or even years. In non-denominational churches like The Bridge, the degree of governance varies from church to church, and the degree of acceptance of grooming and abuse also varies.

That’s good news for those who care about how they look in real life, not pretending to protest on Sunday. They can conduct their anti-grooming activities on Sunday mornings in the air-conditioned comfort of their own church.