There's something in the Midwest called a Julaine Appling, which is president of the anti-gay group Wisconsin Family Action, and Appling became outraged upon learning that the University of Wisconsin in Fox Valley was hosting a drag show. Appling warned that a “self-proclaimed male homosexual transvestite ‘Shangela’" would be performing at the public university... and THAT IT MUST BE STOPPED. "Taxpayers should beware, and quickly take action to defend our shared values," Appling bellowed in an action alert, calling the show a "shameful display of sexual immorality on our campuses and in our local communities.” Which led to a FOX affiliate running a breathless story featuring Appling and a student who confirmed, "If it's something I don't agree with, it's hard to see my money going towards that."

As of Tuesday, the drag show was struggling—with only half the ticket sold. Enter Dan Savage, who saw blogger John Becker's tweet, and stepped up:

Not only did Dan retweet the story to his 140,000+ Twitter followers, he also said that he wanted to help UW-Fox Valley sell out the show.

To make a long story short, after talking with Dan and getting him in touch with the UW-Fox Valley box office, he decided to buy all the remaining tickets and donate them to the school to distribute free of charge to students and community members!

Amazing, right? I’m incredibly touched that a tireless national LGBT advocate like Dan would do so much to personally help make a university drag show in northeastern Wisconsin a success. What a great gift to the entire Fox Valley community! And as a bonus, it’s also great way to stick it to Ms. Appling and the puritans over at Wisconsin Family Action.

All hail Dan! And private to Ms. Appling: Please declare your next war on our office's janky HVAC system.