I'm ready for a new political and cultural movement, laser focused on eliminating the exploitation, grooming, and creepy obsession with children that has become standard operating procedure in our sick culture. Call it the "LTKA" movement.
"Leave the kids alone."
Take the state of Florida, where a lot of good things are happening. The ascendency of ACLU activist and organizer Maxwell Frost is not one of those things. For those who don't know, Frost is the progressive radical who succeeded Val Demmings as representative for the Sunshine State's 10th congressional district.
Late last week, Frost took to his personal Twitter account to lament the cancellation of a gay pride parade:
First, as an elected official, this is an incredibly irresponsible thing to say. Threatening a breach of peace and good order is inappropriate for anyone to intimate, but for a public official it's inexcusable. And on the heels of the Nashville transgender terrorist's rampage, the comment was extremely distasteful.
But beyond that – "no justice"? What does that even mean? Who is being denied their constitutional rights? Who is being deprived of justice?
As the news story Frost cited explains, the state of Florida passed a law that prohibits adults from exposing themselves to children in lewd performances, or subjecting kids to erotic and provocative acts, including those that simulate sexual activity. It's a breathtakingly appropriate law to anyone with a modicum of decency or common sense.
Want to celebrate gay "pride?" Want to hold a parade and revel in your sexual impulses and orientation? Want to indulge your preferred passions and telegraph your temptations? Want to march, chant, and demonstrate for greater sexual license and a more permissive society? Go for it. Just don't take your clothes off in front of kids.
That was apparently too much to ask for the "pride" parade organizers.
Stop and think what that says. The LGBT activists in charge of this event canceled it not because of safety concerns, not because of threats, not because of potentially inclement weather. They canceled it because Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature enacted a ban on stripping nude in front of kids.
The entire episode reminded me of an incident in 2015 when I incurred the wrath of then-Mayor of Indianapolis, Greg Ballard. In an op-ed for the Indy Star, I criticized the progressive Republican for his foolish decision to serve as the grand marshal of the "Cadillac Barbie Indy Pride Parade." Though Ballard claimed to be championing diversity and inclusion, the spectacle he endorsed included men in dog collars and leather G-strings thrusting themselves against poles on their floats, all while drag queens in fishnets handed out lube and condoms along the streets.
Several years ago, lesbian feminist Julie Bindel courageously denounced these kinds of "pride" festivals within her own community as little more than grotesque displays of "sexual hedonism." She called modern "pride" events "just one great party all about sexual access to as many other men as we can secure."
While you can argue that adults have the right to regress into such immaturity and immorality if they so desire, losing themselves in subservience to their own lusts, the contemptible part to me about the Indy event in 2015 was that it was all done within the full view of children. Glowing newspaper coverage included pictures that revealed small kids, their cheeks decorated with rainbow face paint, lining the parade route, watching grown men in skin-tight tutus spread pixie dust.
I didn't get it then and I don't get it now. Why kids? Why is it always about children?
I know many LGBT activists and their allies get very indignant about all the "groomer" characterizations that are coming their way with increasing frequency these days. I would suggest that such concerns shouldn't relent until their community stops inviting children to their sex festivals and canceling their events when they're told not to expose themselves to kids.
That's why I'm more than proud to come out as part of the courageous LTKA community.
