Book Banning, CRT and "Don't Say Gay"

The folks who whine the most about "Cancel Culture" have been doing quite a bit of cancelling on their own the last few years as Republicans abandon any pretence at governing or serving all of their constituents to prosecute culture wars instead. The politicians from this quarter have also always been the party of limited government and local control - now dictating from the state level what can be taught in public schools. The way they are selling these actions is by riling about their base, misrepresenting what they are actually banning. 

Florida recently passed a law that its opponents have referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" law. While it doesn't explicitly ban the use of the word "gay" in schools, it does ban any discussion of  sexual topics in grade K-3, and "age inappropriate" sexual topics in higher grades. If that was all you heard about it, you might be forgiven for thinking that the law was pretty innocuous, after all, why would you be discussing sex with First Graders? And wouldn't you want sex-related discussions to be "age-appropriate"? But this is where straw man arguments, and for good measure, goalpost moving comes in. Supporters of this bill would have you believe that public school teachers are "sexualizing" young children and having explicit discussions about sexuality with them, "grooming" them to become gay, and are even pedophiles, targeting little kids. Since this isn't actually happening, formerly everyday topics have been redefined as running afoul of the new statute. Books that contain references to same-sex marriages, children with gay parents, and even illustrations of rainbows and unicorns (yes, unicorns, I couldn't make this up). Simply acknowledging that Miss Smith may be married to Miss Jones, or Sally's parents are Bob and Frank...acknowledging that gay people exist is now redefined as in the same category as sexualizing children, "grooming" and pedophilia. We're seeing bigotry against gay people covered up by a thin veneer of supposed care for children's safety and poof!, we're back in the 1950's again. 

The hysteria about Critical Race Theory (CRT) is similar. CRT isn't being taught in any high school, let alone elementary school in the country. It is a scholarly discipline that examines systemic racism in the United States and considers the position that the foundations of our government and economy are in fact racist. State governments and local school boards have been busy banning the teaching of CRT, which they describe as requiring White people to believe that they are racist simply for being White, that children are being taught to hate the country and that Black and White children should hate each other. This is a misconception and exaggeration. But similar to the "Don't say gay" proponents, this isn't what CRT is, and it's not being taught in schools, so they goalpost gets moved where any reference to slavery, race-based discrimination, Jim Crow, or even colonialism gets redefined and banned as part of CRT. 

In both of these cases, the right beats the drum in opposition to something that isn't really happening, but which reasonable people might be opposed to if it were, then bait and switch whereby bigotry becomes legalized and encouraged, any discussion of bigotry is outlawed, and the persecutors redefine themselves as persecuted.