It is Valentine’s Day, 14 February 2023.
I flipped on the news first thing, and the topic of conversation is the GOP candidacy for president, They just did a piece on Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
I tell you what, every time I hear him say “woke agenda”, I know what he really means. He’s not “anti-woke”. That’s code folks – it means, “anti-black” relative to teaching American history. It means, “anti-LGBTQ+” when it comes to marriage equality and gender-affirming care for young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria (my guess is that DeSantis and most right-wing politicians couldn’t define gender dysphoria without insulting most people in a room with an IQ above room temperature).
And he says he doesn’t in the name of freedom.
The freedom he’s talking about is the freedom from discomfort and freedom from the truth. He doesn’t want to face it. He’s like so many other people that talk a good game, but in reality, he has an ideal he wants to pursue, where he gets to pick and choose a version of the truth that most closely aligns with his desired reality.
He reminds me of people in foreign countries that are seriously oppressive of the LGBTQ+ community and say ludicrous things like, “that’s a western thing, we don’t have homosexuality here”.
Nah, bud. You have gay folks in your country just like everybody has them in their country. You just oppress them and force them into silence for fear of their own lives.
Freedom means different things to different people. Freedom doesn’t mean suppressing the truth. Freedom means we take the good with the bad, and we realize some 1950s nuclear family fantasy is never going to happen.
Tonight Kansas travels to Stillwater to play the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Texas lost on the road last night at Texas Tech, so tonight’s game might be even more meaningful.
I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.
Peace y’all.
