It’s simple cause and effect!

I’d preface this piece by mentioning that I’ve been defending our gay and transgender brothers and sisters long before it was fashionable, but apparently, your history only matters if you posted an off-color joke on social media when you were 12 years old.

We can’t even have a rational discussion about the nature of that perpetually swinging political pendulum, because as Buffalo Springfield so presciently noted way back in 1966, “Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong. Worse yet, I seem to be the only journalist willing to entertain these kinds of conversations which likely calls my already dubious IQ into serious question. But the truth is, the increasingly strained gay/transgender debate screams for some sort of dialogue, particularly in light of two recent local anti-LGTBQ incidents.

The first involves a repeatedly vandalized Geneva, Illinois, fire hydrant that had been decorated with Pride colors. The second includes a criminal damage to property hate crime against a Lake in the Hills bakery that sponsored an event including performances by three local drag queens.

But instead of making any effort to understand the obvious cause-and-effect consequences, progressives start shrieking that anti-gay sentiment is at record levels and they shout down anyone who marginally disagrees with their demonstrably false narrative. Then it rapidly descends into the kind of self-perpetuating feedback loop where they incite more anti-gay incidents which leads to even louder shrieking.

That dynamic starts with the Cancel Culture going out of their minds if anyone refers to the former Bruce Jenner as “he.” Apparently there’s no such thing as an innocent mistake anymore. The irony there, of course, it that the former Mr. Jenner consistently disappoints her rabid supporters with statements like “Lia Thomas is one of the worst things that happened to the trans community because it’s such bad publicity.”

Then, we’re all supposed to carry personal pronoun scorecards so we can keep track of who wants to be called “he,” “she,” or “they,” a level of insanity to which I will never ascribe. That absurd process would be almost amusing if it weren’t for school districts prosecuting middle schoolers under Title IX for improper pronoun usage.

And speaking of University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, is anyone really surprised that biologically female NCAA athletes feel like they’re under siege? Even Ms. Jenner understands that a six-foot-one biological male beating up on biologically female swimmers is beyond the pale.

Not to be outdone, in an insidious affront to female college athletes everywhere, that university nominated Thomas for “woman of the year?” Really? Young women fought for college sports equality for decades only to have to deal with this?

Please don’t think that tyranny of the minority doesn’t happen here because it does. Remember the gaggle of Batavia teachers who insisted that a transgendered Rotolo Middle School student was “mobbed in the hallway and blocked from the boys bathroom?” It never happened. How do you think the parents of the boys who were falsely accused of intolerance feel about that student and those teachers now?

So, why is anyone surprised when a Pride fire hydrant is defaced or painted over four separate times? The median age of a Genevan is 40.4 which means half the population was raised during a time when LBGTQ intolerance was the norm. I’m not condoning it, I’m simply saying it was an eminently predictable event.

Let’s also be clear that allowing political statements on city property is a really bad idea. The Geneva Police have far better things to do than babysit a fire hydrant, and once a municipality allows one group to make a political statement, it opens the door to the Proud Boys making their own. And if the city refuses their artistic application, they’ll take it to court and win.

Most Christians are all for prayer in public schools until they realize it opens the door to Muslims prayers, too.

Similarly, UpRising Bakery owner Corinna Sac had to know that hosting a drag show in the palpably conservative Lake in the Hills would draw an abundance of free publicity as well as a foreseeable backlash. Broken windows are never the answer, but does anyone really believe that response came out of the blue?

Again, in light of that eternally swaying political pendulum, why is anyone surprised that we’re seeing an anti-gay/transgender reaction? It’s the natural human response to having something forced down their collective throats. And if we simply bury our heads in the sand and fail to try to understand these equal and opposite reactions, it will doom us to repeat the worst of our history.

I’ll say it again. A person’s sexuality should be the last consideration when weighing the content of their character, but when progressives insist on making it the first, it always creates more problems than it solves.

There’s never an excuse for vandalism, but why does an intolerant act mean we can’t have a civil conversation on the efficacy of that imminent equal and opposite political reaction? Can’t we even consider the possibility that, fueled by their all-consuming race to an ideological purity that doesn’t exist, progressives’ persistent beating people over the head for not evolving quickly enough creates the very reality they’re addicted to railing against?

It’s simple cause and effect.