If aliens were monitoring broadcasts emanating from Earth, they might come to the conclusion that human society is on the verge of collapse with half of the population not sure of their gender and the other half fainting at the sight of a naked statue.
Opinion
These kinds of debates are framed as “culture wars,” but they’re really just a farce, and the proof is in the money trail.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was an astounding moment in human history. It was a unique time when people rose up in prayer, engaged in peaceful protests and left their pitchforks at home. Civil rights advocates, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were not asking for special privileges but equal protection under the law.
Then, in 1968, King was assassinated, and the movement changed.
The Civil Rights movement was hijacked by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both of whom have made millions of dollars race hustling, and Sharpton, as leader of the victim-for-hire movement, seems to feel that paying taxes is a chore, so he simply doesn’t pay his taxes and hardly anyone dares question him about it.
Does anyone remember Tawana Brawley? If not, google the name, and you will get a primer on Sharpton’s schtick.
In 2009, Richmond County Sheriff’s deputies were forced to shoot and kill 23 year-old Justin Elmore, a man with a rap sheet longer than a CVS receipt, when he attempted to run them over in his SUV.
Sharpton came to Augusta to speak at Elmore’s funeral amid police brutality protests, and he attempted to stoke the racial flames. Incredibly, tee-shirts were being sold near the steps of the church and, during his eulogy of Elmore, Sharpton urged the crowd to buy a tee-shirt and “support the movement.”
Most recently, Black Lives Matter has amassed millions of dollars in fund raising only for their leader, Patrisse Cullors, to go around buying up mansions and claiming she has the right to live in a $6 million home because she is a “victim.”
The leaders of the LGBT community appear to have taken a cue from Sharpton et al. What started as a simple demand for equal protection under the law has morphed into yet another money grab.
As a public figure in Augusta, I vocally advocated for gay unions to be recognized under the law. To me, it was a Constitutional issue, and the Supreme Court agreed, although the court used a different rationale than mine.
Once the Supreme Court had made its decision to require states to recognize gay unions, everybody should have folded up their pride flags and gone home, but that didn’t happen.
There was too much money to be made.
What started as small parades turned into festivals where vendors hawked every imaginal bit of rainbow-themed merchandise, and universities got into the game by finding the grant money to finally answer the burning question of why lesbians smoke more tobacco than their straight counterparts, as I documented in my book, The Contract On The Government.
The LGBT community needed a new victim, and they found one in the infinitesimally small group of people who are transgender.
It is interesting, and a bit ironic, to note that LGBT leaders decided to make transgender people the new superstars of victimhood when that segment was largely marginalized within the gay community itself.
Incredibly, drag queens, people who are male, identify as male and dress up in costume as women, have been lumped into the mix with people who suffer from the mental disorder of gender-dysphoria and, so now, if someone disagrees with “drag queen story hour” at the public library, they are labeled “transphobic.”
I have been to drag shows in the past; however, the ones I saw did not involve over-the-top racy costumes and “twerking.” They were more like a theater show. The drag queens take on a character like Cher or Beyonce and are rewarded with tips from the audience. Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton look-alike contest to a drag queen, which I found hilarious.
Any reasonable person should conclude that drag shows have their place, and that is in a bar with an adult audience. Holding such performances in front of children is not only silly and needlessly provocative, it confuses the children.
Locally, the owner of Stay Social Tap and Table in Columbia County, Renee Hajek, attempted to cash in on the drag queen craze and then claimed victimhood when the county shut down her business; but the truth was the county simply enforced the law and the decision to revoke her alcohol license had nothing to do with drag queens lighting fireworks and twerking in the parking lot.
Kids are now bombarded over social media with gender related issues at an age when they still think the opposite sex has “cooties.” It has now become the “cool” thing for middle and high schoolers to declare themselves either transexual or gender-neutral and demand others use the they/them pronouns.
As a professional writer, it gets under my skin that the AP Stylebook requires me to use pronouns that are grammatically incorrect because not doing so might hurt someone’s feelings.
Being the parent of a high school senior, I know that the whole pronoun thing with teenagers is a fad. When I was in high school, I sported a mullet, had an earring in my left ear and tortured my parents by blasting RATT from my bedroom. This is no different. It is simply teenagers attempting to find a way to rebel.
However, when the talk starts turning to “gender affirming” surgery for kids, my hackles get raised. Such talk is dangerous, and any physician who would perform such unalterable procedures on children should be considered as criminals.
All of this is intended to get a rise out of rational people and turn them into irrational protestors for the other side.
And, of course, the far-right crazies come out and declare Michaelangelo’s statue of David to be pornographic.
Everyone needs to grow up and stop contributing to the madness. The controversy does nothing but inflate the bank accounts of the lunatic fringes of both sides.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
