The American culture wars just keep ramping up, and now even the rainbow is under attack; a Wisconsin school district has banned a 2017 duet with Miley Cyrus and her godmother, Dolly Parton. A class performance of "Rainbowland" has been axed because administrators decided the lyrics about inclusion violated the district's policy on controversial issues.
As I talked about how the rainbow is now considered a threat, a caller - Wayne from Chalmette - called in to explain why the rainbow is under attack from a religious standpoint. Wayne said he believes that a little boy is a boy, and if he wants to be a girl then he wants to be a girl to be with another boy and "that's not good."
Wayne continued to explain that if a girl wants to be a boy then she wants to be a boy so she can be with other girls. "A person that's trans is sick," he said. Wayne said he's "old school" and I confirmed that he is, indeed, old school with his views!
Lamenting about the lack of religion today, Wayne said, "they said 20 years ago - 68% of the people claim to be religious - now today it's 38%" who claim to be religious, and thus predicted that a judgment is coming.
That caller reflects the thinking of many Americans. I'm not sure where Wayne got the stats on religion today, but he is right that fewer people identify with a religion or claim to be religious, but that is NOT because of the growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community. People are less religious today because young generations have witnessed the wholesale hypocrisy of Christians today. Too many Christians promote Christian values but do not manifest those values in their personal or professional lives. Self-described Christians have done more to damage the image of Christianity than anything else.
The rainbow is a symbol of inclusion and anyone who extends that to represent sex acts is taking a big leap to discredit the rainbow.
The case the caller was trying to build to condemn the rainbow seemed filled with the right-wing rhetoric that is being parroted without actually thinking about the real issues. We have lost our ability to think and apply common sense to issues, and replacing that common sense are false facts and mere echoes of the rhetoric being fed to audiences by far-right influencers.
