Tag: LGBTQ

Elvis: Pushing the Envelope

The new Elvis Presley biopic made me think.  Early in the movie, Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks, says that the acts that made the most money were ones “that gave the audience feelings they weren’t sure they should enjoy, but they do.”  Then the film focuses on the controversial gyrations that drove the girls crazy and made many people upset and uncomfortable as “The King” began his rise to stardom.  Now we laugh because those dance moves that seemed so edgy in the 1950s seem so tame by today’s standards.  This is not a new phenomenon.

Every generation, you hear the older people complaining that the younger generation is worse than theirs was.  “Kids today,” they often grumble.  The popular culture explains this by saying that old people are stuck in their ways and overly critical of the younger generation.  The media may say that the younger generations are not really that rebellious or bad, because the older generation was also seen as rebellious and bad by the generation before them.  Have you ever considered that maybe, instead of each generation being old, stodgy, and self-absorbed, that actually they are right?  Each generation really is worse than the last, because they have to one-up the previous generation by pushing the envelope further than their parents.  Yes, no generation is perfect and they all have a rebellious streak, but that does not mean that younger generations are morally equivalent to older ones.  Just because Elvis shaking his hips on stage was rebellious and controversial in the 50s, that does not mean that it is morally equivalent to Cardi B singing “Wet Ass Pussy” today.  Can we please bring back the innocence of generations past?

The worrisome part about this is that the envelope has already been pushed so far that it is hard to imagine what somebody can do next that will actually shock anybody.  The Beatles’ long hair is certainly not controversial anymore.  Drug references in lyrics that shocked people in the 60s and 70s are old news.  Maybe it would take it to a higher level if someone bit the head off of a bat onstage?  Nope.  Ozzy Osbourne already did that in 1982.  Remember when Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s breast in front of over 100 million viewers on live television at Super Bowl XXXVIII?  That was way back in 2004.  I fear that celebrities will become so desperate for attention in the coming years that we will see some disgusting acts being done to gain notoriety.

Will we soon see live sex acts on stage?  Will our entertainment revert back to feeding Christians to lions in front of cheering audiences?  Are we going to see The Hunger Games play out in real life?  We seem to be heading in that direction.  The good news is that there is now another way to cause controversy and gain attention.  Simply do and say good things that were once considered normal and mainstream.  As the Bible says, when people rebel from God, they begin to call evil good, and good evil.  It is definitely happening.  Think about the things that actually are considered shocking and controversial today: 

  • In June, five Tampa Bay Rays pitchers were attacked by the mainstream press and “woke” social media pundits for opting not to wear rainbow “Pride Night” logos on their uniforms.  You do not even have to go back to my parents’ generation for when this stance would have been applauded.  Now it is counter-culture. 
  • Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling started a firestorm of controversy when she criticized the use of the term “people who menstruate” instead of women.  She also committed the unforgivable sin of tweeting her support for a woman who had been fired for saying that “men cannot change into women.”  I am pretty sure that Elvis could have said that without causing a stir.
  • Actor Chris Pratt (Jurassic World, The Terminal List) has been disparaged as “the worst Chris in Hollywood” for his public professions of Christian faith.  What a Hollywood bad boy, huh?  Personally, I think being a Christian is the best way to be a rebel because it also gets you into Heaven.
  • If you really want to be an outcast, choose not to get what is called a Covid-19 vaccine, even though it does not prevent you from getting or spreading Covid-19.  This is the most discriminated against group in America for the past couple of years (with one possible exception).  They have been banned from many places, and some have even lost their jobs.  They are controversial not for anything they did, but instead for not subjugating themselves to their overlords.
  • When it comes to controversial athletes, former baseball star Curt Schilling is near the top of the list.  He was fired from ESPN in 2015 for tweeting “A man is a man regardless of what they name themselves.  Male bathrooms were created with the penis in mind; female bathrooms were not.  Is it now necessary to have laws to teach us otherwise?  Pathetic.”  To any previous generation, that comment would not only be acceptable, but obvious.  Now it is a fireable offense and has even been used to keep Schilling out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  • Actress Gina Carano was famously fired from Disney’s, The Mandalorian, for taking the provocative position that she should not have to ask to be called “she,” since she is obviously a woman.  Apparently, calling a boy “he,” or a girl “she,” is now edgy.  Charlie Sheen had to work a lot harder than that to get fired from a hit show.
  • The one possible exception mentioned above as the most discriminated group in America are supporters of President Trump.  The backlash that Elvis got for dancing is nothing compared to what you can expect if you say you agree with President Trump.  If you support his policies that brought us a booming economy, less government interference in our lives, and four years of peace (including unprecedented peace agreements in the Middle East), you can expect to be attacked more viciously than an opposing sports star in Philadelphia. 

It is terrible that these things are now controversial, but there is one positive thing about it.  Entertainers want attention.  In the past, they had to come up with more and more outlandish and crazy gimmicks than we had previously seen to get that attention.  Now, all they have to do is espouse solid, traditional values, and wait for the media firestorm.

Again, this is not new.  When reading the Bible straight through, the Old Testament prophets were the hardest parts to get through because they were so repetitive that it got boring.  They were all the same thing.  Israel would turn from God and pull further and further away from Him.  He would warn them through prophets, and most of the time they would ignore the warnings and push His patience even more.  Eventually, God said that enough was enough and allowed Israel to be defeated and the people to be scattered into exile.  We are in that same spiral of self-destruction that the Israelites were in.  Each generation seems to push their rebellion a little further than the last.  We have had our modern-day prophets warning us to turn back to our morals and values of the past.  Dennis Prager, Rush Limbaugh, William F. Buckley, and others have warned us about the decay of our values and societal norms of earlier generations.  If America does not heed these warnings and keeps pushing the boundaries, we will soon run out of room to push and we will end up as Israel did. 

There is one last thing I should do before I close out.  To all the old people out there, I apologize for my generation.  You were right.

What Is Liberty?

The week before California’s recall election I had the privilege of meeting the world’s greatest athlete from 1976.  That title was traditionally bestowed on the winner of the decathlon, and at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal Bruce Jenner won the gold medal for the United States while setting a new world record.  In 2015 Bruce Jenner shocked the world in an interview with Diane Sawyer in which he told Sawyer that he was now a she.  (Disclaimer:  So as not to be a science denier I am using the scientifically correct gender pronouns in this article.  That is not the focus of the article.)  Jenner, who now goes by the name Caitlyn, ran in the California recall election as a Republican to replace the inept Governor Gavin Newsom.  The Friday before election day Caitlyn Jenner was the guest speaker at a discussion group that I have been attending for the last couple of months.

Caitlyn’s talk was impressive.  He was personable, friendly, and funny.  Jenner said that after the Sawyer interview there was more criticism for coming out as a Republican than there was for coming out as transgender.  Jenner also told a funny story about being in the weight room at the Olympics when a female East German athlete came in and started lifting heavier weights than him, ironically causing him to leave because he felt emasculated.  Jenner genuinely cares about California and wants it returned to the greatness it once had.  I did not expect much talk about actual policy positions, but Jenner has a pretty solid grasp of many of the problems Gavin Newsom and years of Democrat control have caused, including sky-high tax rates and backbreaking regulations.  A lot of ideas that Jenner had to fix some of these problems were good, including a sunset provision which would require regulations to be reevaluated by the legislature every ten years or else they would fall off the books. 

There was, however, one major point that Jenner made that stood out to me because it was based on a flawed premise.  Jenner said that he decided to run because of his belief that California needs a moderate Republican to fix the state.  Specifically, he said that people should vote for him because he is conservative on economic issues and more liberal on social issues.  Jenner also said that the candidate that I endorsed, Larry Elder, is “far-right.”  The premise of that argument ignores the fact that conservatism comes with a built-in solution to people disagreeing on social issues:  liberty.

Jenner’s reasoning assumes that the choice you have is between voting for a left-wing government controlling your life or a right-wing government controlling your life.  In actuality, the choice is between a left-wing government controlling your life or you controlling your life. 

For example, as a conservative Republican, I believe that the country would be much better off if every single American attended church weekly.  I would agree with Jenner if a governor who is “far-right” was going to mandate church attendance.  As much as I think we would all be better off if everyone went to church, I only believe that to be true if it was done voluntarily instead of under coercion.  If the Right operated like Democrats this might be something to worry about.  Imagine, the government forcing all businesses with over 100 employees to require proof of church attendance to be employed there.  Jenner’s argument only works if the Right did that kind of thing.  Instead, the Right wants people to be free to choose, even if we disagree.  That is what liberty is. 

Conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, are often accused of telling people what to do on moral issues.  The truth is, we do care about your moral decisions and we want you to choose what God wants for you.  Notice, however, that I said: “choose.”  Except on the issue of abortion, where the choice directly harms another person, we do not want to take the decision away from you.  The difference is huge.  Conservatives may try to persuade you to do certain things, but that is not the same as using tyrannical power to force those things.  This is what Caitlyn Jenner was missing.  The further to the left a politician gets, the more parts of your life they want to control.  Being a moderate Republican still means they want to have more control over you than a “far right” candidate does.  That is not a good selling point. 

Jenner was asked if he would run for office again if he lost this election and answered that he wasn’t sure about running again, but he would definitely work with the Republican Party to become more of a big tent party that is more inclusive.  I hope that he does, but it needs to be done by explaining clearly that the way to do it is to push for a return to limited government and personal liberty.  We can agree to disagree.  You are welcome in the Republican Party even if you want to use your God-given liberty to do things we may not agree with.  I certainly do not agree with many of Caitlyn Jenner’s lifestyle choices, but I also do not want the government to force him to do what I would prefer.  The Right has no interest in taking away your liberty.