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Heroic Catholic needs help with legal fees after fighting to protect kids from drag queen story time

By Emily MangiaracinaJune 6, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Heroic Catholic needs help with legal fees after fighting to protect kids from drag queen story time
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Robert Judge has been abandoned by the Lafayette Parish government as he faces a lawsuit for removing a pro-LGBTQ, drag queen story time-defending woman from a Library Board meeting.

LAFAYETTE, Louisiana (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic man who fought drag queen story time needs help paying massive legal fees due to his removal of a pro-LGBTQ woman from a Louisiana library board meeting.

Robert Judge has had a target on his back since he came to local prominence for speaking out against plans in 2018 to host “drag queen story time” for children ages 3-6 at the Lafayette Public Library. He and other concerned citizens successfully canceled the event, and about a year later, a drag queen admitted to the Lafayette City-Parish Council that he and others like him are “trying to groom the next generation.”

Help fund heroic Catholic man’s legal defense 

Judge told LifeSiteNews how he later came to be sued amid the performance of his duties as president of the Lafayette Public Library Board of Control, a position he was encouraged to pursue after speaking out to defend children, and especially because of his Catholic faith.

As soon as he took his seat on the board, leftists sued the parish (county) council in order to have him removed, according to Judge.

Fast forward to January 2023, and a woman came to the podium at a Lafayette library board meeting to slander several board members, something Judge said violates the rules of decorum for their public meetings — the same rules used for parish council meetings.

“We can talk about the issues but not personal attacks,” Judge explained. Indeed, ad hominem attacks are frequently discouraged or outright prohibited during public board meetings across the country.

Melanie Brevis started by taking issue with the fact that certain board members were “conservative” and “Christian,” and that they wanted to “segregate certain materials” due to “personal belief,” referring to literature pornographic targeted to children. 

This policy of protecting children from sexually explicit books was in fact adopted by the state of Louisiana in 2022 and targets obscene books like GenderQueer and All Boys Aren’t Blue, which graphically describe homosexual acts.

Brevis went on to call the board members “the true groomers,” and even accused one of the woman members of “grooming her own children and others" because of her protest of drag queen story time.

Judge ruled she was out of order for these slanderous statements and others and then ordered her removed from the meeting. She was defiant, even toward the police officers, and later went on with another woman to sue Judge, the parish government, and the sheriff’s department for what she considered to be a First Amendment violation.

While the Lafayette Parish government is seeking a settlement with the plaintiffs, on May 20, the mayor’s office of Lafayette wrote Judge accusing him of misconduct and asserting that they do not owe him any legal defense. 

Now, abandoned by the very government he served and without the funds to pay for an attorney, Judge is in need of financial help to cover his legal fees.

Help fund heroic Catholic man’s legal defense 

Please prayerfully consider a donation as an expression of gratitude for his defense of our children. 

Family & Culture
June 6, 2025 at 4:27 PM
EM

Emily Mangiaracina

Emily Mangiaracina is a Miami-based journalist for LifeSiteNews. She is a 2013 graduate of the University of Florida. Emily is most passionate about the Traditional Latin Mass and promoting the teachings of the Catholic Church.
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Article At A Glance

  • Robert Judge has been abandoned by the Lafayette Parish government as he faces a lawsuit for removing a pro-LGBTQ, drag queen story time-defending woman from a Library Board meeting.

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