“Nothing Unreal Exists” — Spock, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

“People are entitled to their own opinions. They are not entitled to the their own facts”

— Attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, also quoted by Mike Pence in a debate

“Legislators behind the Idaho bill said critical race theory “tries to make kids feel bad.” — NBC News, June 17, 2021

“The problem with transgenderism isn’t that it’s inappropriate for 9 years olds. The problem is that it’s a lie…If [transgenderism] is false, then for the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely,” Michael Knowles, At CPAC yesterday

“The problem is not the problem. Coping is the problem.” — Virginia Satir

America has a real problem with truth, and it’s killing us. In the past few years, politicians have said “Critical Race Theory” shouldn’t be taught in grades K – 12. In Florida, they recently passed a “Don’t Say Gay Bill” Today, at CPAC, a man named Michael Knowles said “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life after saying “transgenderism is false”.

The fact that anyone can say that last one shows that we are off the rails, and people are going to end up dead.

Years ago, I had a conversation with a kid who told me “Billy says I can’t be trans. Trans isn’t real”. I responded, “Do you exist?”. The answer was “yes”. I then asked “Are you trans?” When the answer came back, “yes”, I said, “It seems like the argument has been won”.

I don’t know a lot about transgenderism, but I am sure it exists. In the 1970’s, I think, Renee Richards became the first trangendered person to play pro tennis or the first pro tennis player to become a different gender. In my graduate school days, we were taught that there were women who wanted to be guys so they could have relationships with women. There are men who believe they are female and want to have relationships men .. or women. I will say that we, almost to a person, couldn’t understand it, couldn’t believe it at first. That was in 1998 or so. Even before it was controversial, it was real.

Protestors of the past said, “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it”. That’s my kind of revolution. It’s not saying, “We’re angry. Be afraid”. The phrase was more like, “We exist. Get over yourselves”. We need to have more revolutions like that. They are not revolutions of right or wrong. They are revolutions of facts. We know something we didn’t know before.

A few years ago, as Black Lives Matter rose to prominence, they too had a revolution of facts. “Yes, Black lives do matter”, many White people said, “What’s the problem?” Because there have been plenty of times in our history when people thought they didn’t. Then we learned about Black Wall Street and the massacre that took place there in Tulsa Oklahoma, in 1921. Then came Juneteenth and we learned that slavery didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation. It ended years later, when all Americans heard about it. Then came the book “1619” and there was backlash about the opinions in it. Facts, however, couldn’t be argued with and we have a clearer picture of American history. George Floyd’s death made a lot more sense suddenly.

There are still Holocaust deniers all over the world. 40 million dead Jews would be an awful lot of truth to hide. If we had to make it up, why would we? Besides, our soldiers saw the camps. Yet, whether or not people want to believe in the truth, it still exists.

The slaughter of Native Americans came to the fore in the Early 1970’s and while we were there, some of us saw the beauty in the culture we had once tried to remove.

Remember #Me Too? That, too, was a revolution of facts. Did it make all of us uncomfortable? Hell, yes, it did! Did we want to believe it? No, but evil exists, even if we don’t want it to, just as much as good exists, whether we want it to or not.

The question is, “What do we do about it?”. The answer, regardless of the question, is not deny it, hide it, and certainly not to kill it. It may not be to like the truth, or we want for ourselves. I have never pushed for people to be trans or gay or anything else, unless they are already. I never want to hear that anyone should be eradicated just because they exist because we don’t know what their existence means to us or others, either now or in the future. The truth can’t set you free if you choose not to hear it.

Yes, you’re certainly entitled to your own opinion about the facts, but you are not entitled to say they are not true. Because of God, eternal life may be an option, but it’s not ours to decide for someone else whether they live or die.

Resisting With Peace,

John