My wife and I just finished watching the HBO series "Chernobyl" that tells the story of the 1986 Soviet nuclear disaster. It was fascinating to learn so many details about the event that were kept from the public eye – so many insights into the secrecy and deceit that defined the old Soviet empire.
One of the most moving parts of the series was when Valery Legasov, the famed Soviet inorganic chemist who led containment efforts after the reactor meltdown, presented the findings of his investigation to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Addressing Soviet leaders and the courtroom of public opinion, such as it was, Legasov delivered a statement that stood out to me:
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can't even remember…Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.
The statement proved to be prophetic in Legasov's own life. Haunted by his country's unwillingness to address the serious errors and flaws that had led to the disaster, the chemist hung himself on the one-year anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown.
But I can't help but acknowledge that what was once true in the communist East is now unfolding in the historically free West. The lies we tell are different – not ones about cutting corners on nuclear power, but about things like basic biology and reality itself. The consequence, however, will be the same.
The truth that a gender binary exists, that there is a real, pronounced, profound distinction between male and female, that truth now offends; and so "we lie and we lie until we can't even remember" the truth anymore.
And is there a debt to be paid? You bet there is.
But just like the Soviet lies had ripple effects, ours do too, even to the point of exploiting and endangering the most innocent among us.
For all the political rancor and indignant objections over the term "grooming," tell me what other word can be used to better describe this:
For a couple decades, social conservatives, and more specifically conservative Christians, have been warning this day was coming. We've been called alarmists, hysterics, and hyperbolic doomsayers. And now the day is here.
After all, as Legasov put it, "Sooner or later the debt is paid."
