Pushback against ‘woke’ agenda happening around the world

OPINION:

Don’t look now, but the resistance to woke tyranny is rising rapidly, and not just in the United States.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon resigned on Wednesday after eight years in office. A leftist and climate change extremist, she opposed Brexit while leading the fight for Scottish independence from Britain. 

During her tenure, according to the Daily Mail, Scottish life expectancy plunged, drug deaths doubled, alcohol deaths increased, schools continued failing, and Scots were worse off economically than when she took office. Yes, it sounds like Detroit, New York, and other U.S. cities run by Democrats.

But the tipping point was Ms. Sturgeon’s role in the Scottish Parliament’s passage of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would remove the need for a medical diagnosis for gender changes and allow teens as young as 16 to undergo treatment. Ms. Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party “has been in turmoil” over it, leading to her resignation, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In a welcome spark of sanity, the British government blocked the measure. 

The United Kingdom’s spanking of one of its members is similar to what Congress did the other day after the D.C. City Council voted to legalize voting by noncitizens. The measure is so broadly written that the Communist Chinese delegation could have shown up at the polls and cast ballots. Asserting its constitutional authority, the Republican-led House, with support from 42 Democrats, overrode the measure.

Across the U.S., there is considerable pushback against various aspects of the woke agenda. 

In 14 states, Republicans have filed a total of 23 bills aimed at protecting children from drag queen story hours. That’s when men in exaggerated female attire read gender-bending books to children. 

The American Civil Liberties Union and other LGBTQ pressure groups are apoplectic. They argue that “proponents of the drag laws are falsely equating sometimes bawdy events in adult-only venues with family friendly performances at libraries,” The Washington Post summarized. 

Family friendly? Sorry. You can’t put lipstick on this pig. Children should not be around people who want to pervert them. 

On Feb. 11 in Idaho, parents found a way to shield children from a drag queen story hour at the library in Pocatello. Inspired by the pro-family group MassResistance, about 50 parents showed up early and took all the seats. The library director ordered them to leave, but they refused. No children were present when the drag queen read his books to the less-than-enthusiastic audience. As if on cue, the media howled at the inhumanity of it all. 

In St. Louis, a whistleblower named Jamie Reed has ripped the lid off the Washington University Transgender Center, one of more than 100 clinics in the U.S. that specialize in transgender pediatrics.  

“Almost everyone in my life advised me to keep my head down,” said Ms. Reed, a self-described queer woman married to a trans man. “But I cannot in good conscience do so. Because what is happening to scores of children is far more important than my comfort. And what is happening to them is morally and medically appalling.”

The portion of the brain dealing with logic does not mature until the mid-20s, so it is criminal to stop normal puberty or cut off a minor’s healthy organs. Clinics are being shut down in Europe, where they’ve finally figured out that this is child abuse.  

On Wednesday, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri filed the Protecting Our Kids From Child Abuse Act. The bill “creates a private right of action for individuals who were harmed by a gender-transition procedure performed on them when they were minors” and prohibits federal funding to pediatric gender clinics. 

We see many more examples of active resistance. Twenty states now prohibit government schools from imposing COVID-19 vaccination mandates on students. The U.S. military has also had to pull back its dangerous shot directive, although it still punishes service members who refused to get them when it was mandatory. 

Congressional Republicans are investigating the Department of Justice over Attorney General Merrick Garland’s still-active memo targeting parent protesters at school board meetings as possible terrorists.

Likewise, Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and 19 other state attorneys general are threatening legal action over a leaked internal FBI memo from the Richmond office that calls conservative Catholics “potential terrorists” who need to be spied on.
The memo, which the national FBI office quickly disavowed, cites as a source the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center. One of the tipoffs is attending the traditionalist Latin Mass. Seriously.

Remember when teens at the March for Life were kicked out of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum if they wouldn’t remove their pro-life hats, buttons and shirts? The American Center for Law and Justice has just filed a First Amendment lawsuit.

This is what pushback looks like. 

Two lessons should be gleaned from all this. If you’re disturbed by the woke insanity, you’re not alone. Far from it. 

The other lesson, which cannot be repeated too often, is that elections have consequences.

• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.