The State Department is standing by its decision to spend $10,000 in taxpayer funds on a film festival that featured movies with incest and pedophilia, according to communications with Congress obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The State Department is defending a $10,000 grant awarded to Queer Lisboa, an international queer film festival held in Portugal, saying that it has no problem awarding taxpayer funds to a film festival that displayed controversial movies featuring drag queens, acts of incest, and pedophilia.
“The United States strongly supports protecting and promoting the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons,” the State Department wrote to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), who raised concerns about the grant during a July hearing. “We support freedom of expression and do not censor our grantee’s content or products.”