When we hear about Mike Johnson’s adopted son, we notice that Hhe doesn’t seem to be in any of the family pictures. He was adopted when he was fourteen. Maybe he is the one taking the picture. Maybe he doesn’t like being in pictures. Maybe we should respect his privacy as Johnson alluded to in the article linked above.

This is an uncomfortable talking point. Admonishing our own is never a joyous experience, but it is one that has to be done every once in awhile. There always seems to be a trail that follows those with prolific anti-gay rhetoric. I think that is when Shakespeare said, “doth protest too much.”

It is in this vain that progressives and gay rights activists seem to be going after Johnson. Perhaps it is just a group of people that watch a little too much Investigative Discovery in their spare time. Years ago there was a similar story involving Matt Gaetz. He apparently adopted a boy from Cuba. Considering how sleazy and sexualized Gaetz is, there was plenty of speculation about what was really going on there.

That same speculation is happening now. Johnson has made a career of ant-gay and anti-lesbian rhetoric and championed legislation that would promote those views. He has opposed legislation that would support those groups. His wife dangles in the gay conversion therapy that feels so repugnant. One thing leads to another and the amateur sleuths assume Johnson is gay and trying to repress it. They are assuming the boy was a furtherance to that end.

I’m really not sure which is worse. On the one hand, you have a young man that really doesn’t want to be in the limelight and you are openly attempting to out him against his wishes. The fact that none of it could be true cannot be understated. You also have a legislator that has said and done some pretty questionable things above board and you are spending your time trying to catch him in some sort of hypocrisy below board.

Is Mike Johnson secretly gay? I really don’t know and I really don’t care. What I do care about is what he will actually do as speaker of the house. I care that he attempted to push the big lie forward and actually did things behind the scenes to make it happen. I care that this fact didn’t seem to be a disqualifying point for his House colleagues. I care that he is already going back on his word to push through aid for Ukraine at the same time as they pass aid for Israel.

I care about a looming shutdown in November that no one has done anything about since they passed the last continuing resolution. I care that he is seen as an improvement over Jim Jordan just because he doesn’t yell as much and seems able to find his sport coat on a daily basis.

What I don’t care about is whether or not he is a closeted homosexual. Maybe that fuels his homophobia and far right views. Maybe it drives him to go whole hog on the evangelical thing. I care what you do. I care how your actions affect those around you, me, and everyone else. Whether there is a deep seeded reason for those actions matters not to the people suffering the consequences of those actions. I’ll let the psychologists and psychiatrists worry about repressed feelings, self-loathing, and all of the other buzzwords we like to throw around these days. Let’s focus on the real stuff and let others worry about the imaginary stuff.

“Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola.” — Ray Davies

The line above came from Lola by the Kinks. You could say that Ray Davies was ahead of his time, but he really wasn’t. Others had blazed that ground before. In this tale, a young narrator (we can presume Davies) is in a bar when he meets up with a transvestite named “Lola”. It seems simple enough right? It wasn’t the Kinks best hit, but it might be the most recognizable song they did when you ask fans of music today.

Of course, the irony is that the fossils in Washington and in the state houses were probably coming of age when that song was popular. Some of them may have even enjoyed it as a kid. Oh how soon we forget. I suppose that happens to all of us on some level. We often conveniently forget the things when we did when we were younger and that is especially true when it comes to our own children.

All of the talk of Democrats being pedophiles, groomers, and what not is based on two very cynical calculations. It is something they want you and I to think about and argue about. If we are arguing about this then we won’t necessarily see real opportunities for lasting change slip out of our grasp. It’s a parlor trick. The trouble is that grooming and pedophilia are loaded terms with very specific definitions. Q would have us believe that the entire Democratic party and half of Hollywood are pedophiles. We can’t seem to define these things anymore. Suddenly, someone that shows tolerance is a groomer or a pedophile. Yet, the man that literally said he wanted to have sex with his daughter is the guy that will free us from this pedophilia ring.

However, there is a more serious implication from these charges and one that some people honestly believe. There is a belief that this notion of transgender, transvestites, homosexual, bisexual, and general experimentation is somehow more prevalent now than at any time in history. If you ask people at the Trump rallies what percentage of people are transgender you will get some ludicrous responses. One gentlemen said it was 20 percent. If being gay, lesbian, bisexual, a transvestite, or transgender were all 100 percent choices then the fact that there are more of them would be proof of grooming. It would have to be that way right?

Except it is all a lie. Anyone that knows anyone on the LGTBQ+ spectrum knows it is a natural phenomenon and not really a choice. So, simply demonstrating tolerance and acknowledgement of who someone is is not grooming behavior. Furthermore, pedophilia is a specific thing. Gay people are not pedophiles as a general rule anymore than priests are. Again, it is a specific thing and needs to be treated as such.

The sinister thing about it all is that these poor people become targets. Suddenly, you realize there are all kinds of people to hate and absolutely none of them have anything to do with why we may be struggling. It truly is a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, but it sure as hell isn’t Lola’s fault. She’s just a girl trying to have a good time.