Courage Is Contagious

It’s no secret that we live in a world where our culture is turning away from truth and reality. The most egregious examples of this are the sudden obsession with drag queens and the way leftists trip over each other to defend and promote transgender people.

I know that there are countless other examples I can use of our culture’s sudden turn into left-wing madness, but the drag and transgender debates are the most in-your-face and dangerous aspects of the woke infection of modern culture.

Not only do leftists want to embrace drag queens and transgender people, but they also want everyone else to welcome these lifestyles with open arms. It used to be that the goal of the gay rights movement — which is so much easier to say or type than trying to remember this week’s combination of letters — was for everyone to treat gays and lesbians the same as straight people. And that’s an admirable goal because decent people should treat others as individuals.

That’s not the case anymore. These days, it’s not enough to accept gays, lesbians, transgenders, and whatever all the other letters mean. We have to promote and celebrate their lifestyles, even if we don’t agree with them.

It’s everywhere lately; no matter where we go, we can’t escape it. “Pride Month” is a year-round thing. Last summer, I remember seeing pride-themed kids’ clothes at my local Walmart. Every time I went into the store, I noticed that the rack remained largely untouched. Memes try to normalize today’s hypersexual drag queens by comparing them to older movies and TV shows where men dressed as women, but there’s no equivalence between Mrs. Doubtfire, Some Like It Hot, or Bosom Buddies and men in the gender version of blackface dancing provocatively.

I’m definitely not the only one to notice it. “Why does everyone have to be gay all the time now?” singer-songwriter Tal Bachman asked in a column this week. “I don’t get it.” I think there’s a little bit of surrender on the part of some people. It’s a bit of the “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality — maybe not “join them” so much as “give up and go along.”

At the same time, the LGBTQMAKEITSTOP lobby is forcing compliance to its agenda at every turn.

“Live-and-let-live isn’t good enough anymore, evidently,” Bachman wrote. “Now, everyone and everything has to be gay, or go gay, so to speak, at a moment’s notice.”

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But we’re starting to see pockets of resistance that are effective. The NHL is one shining recent example. In January, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov stirred up a hornet’s nest when he refused to warm up wearing a Pride Night-themed jersey. Immediately, he encountered the ire of the left but also became a hero to people of faith and believers in the traditional sexual ethos.

Provorov was just the start, as PJM’s own Robert Spencer reported last week.

“Provorov opened the floodgates. Shortly after he took his stand, the New York Rangers declined to wear their Pride Night jerseys, and then the New York Islanders, Chicago Blackhawks, and Minnesota Wild followed suit,” Robert wrote. “The Daily Caller adds that ‘the San Jose Sharks’ James Reimer, Buffalo Sabres’ Ilya Lybushkin, and Florida Panthers’ brothers Marc and Eric Staal also didn’t participate in their team’s Pride Nights.’”

All of these actions have led to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announcing that the league is revisiting the idea of Pride Nights.

“I think that’s become more of a distraction now,” Bettman has said.

That’s immensely encouraging for anyone who wants to stand up against the woke influence on American and Western culture. On their Unshaken Faith podcast, Alisa Childers and Natasha Crain spoke about turning the tide of the LGBTQ (and sometimes Y) influence. One of them said something that really resonated with me: “Courage is contagious.”

And it is! We as Christians — and as Jews and even as non-religious people who believe in truth — can show courage and push back against the tide of the LGBT lobby and wokeness in general.

I appeared with Stephen Kruiser on the Kruiser Kabana podcast this week, and one of the things we talked about was fighting back against the left as Christians. Kruiser said that we as Christians — and I would extend that to non-Christians who are concerned with truth and morality — should be able to shout “NO” at what’s going on in our culture. (Actually, he used much stronger language; you’ll have to listen to find out what he said.)

But it takes courage. And when we put that courage into action and stand for truth and for protecting the innocent, others will see it and join in. If it can happen in the NHL, it can happen in the circles we run in. We must band together to stop the woke onslaught.

My daily devotion today reminded me that life as we know it is unfair, and “sometimes this means that the world is upside down, with the righteous suffering and the wicked prospering.” God’s followers can “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:2, ESV).

But all of us — believers or not — can and should band together to stick up for truth in our culture. Courage is contagious. May we exhibit it every day.

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