Invading the bedroom, bathroom and classroom

When did private parts become a public matter? I’m not sure, but our governor and the Republicans in the Legislature are determined to make it so. They won’t let go. Republican legislators who scream that government must not mandate masks, but then rush to regulate the operating room and the locker room is ludicrous.

There are serious problems for all of us — school funding, bridges, highways, among other needs. But with the wisdom of kids playing doctor, they try to keep Medicaid dollars from helping people who want gender affirming surgery. Their action in denying those funds leads not to a better society, but one with increased depression and even suicide. They isolate and denigrate as they continue their fixation.

An Iowa District Court judge has said they are wrong.

Recently, the sanctity of girls’ sports has consumed valuable time from more serious matters. You can hear the GOP shout, “Man, the barricades, man the barricades, transgender kids are coming, the transgender kids are coming.”

When our legislators here and in Washington, D.C., aren’t angry about that, there is always the flag and superpatriotism. “Hear ye, the Senate will now consider how school kids should pledge allegiance.” If our legislators, including Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, did nothing about either matter, our country would not be worse off tomorrow or next year, or ever.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, is the current voice urging fear of people who never threatened anyone anywhere, are no clear and present danger and mostly just want to be left to live comfortably with their gender identity. There are an estimated 1.4 million transgender people in the United States. Few have played on girls’ basketball teams and they have never invaded the Capitol and threatened Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi. At their most aggressive moments, they bounce a ball or run a race.

While Scott was beating his masculine breast on private sexual matters, the Russians were in Ukraine, we are imposing sanctions and trying to avoid anything close to war. People are still dying of COVID. Scott, defining his party’s goals in the Senate, wants us to invade the bedroom, bathroom, and the classroom. That is not conservative. It’s nuts.

Scott also wants to make sure our kids are reciting the Pledge of Allegiance properly. The pledge was written in 1892 by a minister and revised a couple of times since. Scott wants to make sure that every child stands and salutes.

What is it, I wonder, that motivates, requires, compels guys like Scott to care about the private lives and private parts of fellow citizens? We assume everyone in the Garden of Eden was straight, but we really can’t be sure about their kids.

Despite Scott and the religious right, our secular society has moved in a truly Christian direction, not their narrow and mean spirited one, but a true love of thy neighbor and acceptance of their sexual orientation.

Scott is a long way from Iowa, but the serpent’s venom is here as well. We are once again fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.