I am pretty much a non-combatant in the culture wars these days but the gulf between decriminalizing homosexuality and the trans gender thing is just too vast for an old guy to grasp. I am pretty much a libertarian on most of this but the sexualization of children is a reach too far. I have no problem with gay marriage although Civil Union seemed more appropriate. I have worked with gays for many years and always was tolerant of them. The vicious backlash by gay “activists” after the California prop 8 was approved by a large majority was appalling. The federal judge who ruled it unconstitutional retired soon after and married his gay lover. The state attorney general did not appeal that ruling. Gay activist groups were able to retaliate by identifying those who donated to the proposition’s supporters.
Boycotts were also a feature of public response to the outcome of the election. LGBT rights groups published lists of donors to the Yes on 8 campaign and organized boycotts of individuals or organizations who had promoted or donated to it.[159][160][161] Targets of the boycotts included the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, El Coyote Cafe, California Musical Theatre, and the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel.[161][162][163]
Some supporters of Proposition 8 reported receiving death threats, some of which claimed to be “stemming from Prop 8”.[164][165] Some LDS churches were vandalized with spray paint.[166][167]
The boycotts and threats cost a few waitresses their jobs. More significantly, Brenden Eich, the founder/CEO had to resign from Mozilla.
The new chief executive of Mozilla, the firm behind the Firefox web browser, has resigned following a furore over a donation he made in support of a ban on gay marriage in California.
Brendan Eich has “chosen to step down” after less than two weeks in the job, Mitchell Baker, executive chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation, which owns the company, announced in a blogpost on Thursday.
“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” said Baker. “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”
Thus, the “Woke” movement and “Cancel Culture” got an early start.
The “Racism” theme got a big boost from Barak Obama as he decided to use racism as a weapon to tie blacks to the Democrat Party.
First, there was the Henry Gates kerfuffle where he had lost his keys and tried to force his front door. A concerned neighbor called 911.
Gates found the front door to his home jammed shut and, with the help of his driver, tried to force it open. A local witness reported their activity to the police as a potential burglary in progress. Accounts regarding the ensuing confrontation differ, but Gates was arrested by the responding officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, and charged with disorderly conduct. On July 21, the charges against Gates were dropped. The arrest generated a national debate about whether or not it represented an example of racial profiling by police.
Of course, Obama inserted himself into this local matter.
On July 22, President Barack Obama said about the incident, “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
Racial relations, which had been improving since 1964, were set back almost 50 years by what followed.
Next came Ferguson, MO where a black who had just committed a robbery tried to wrest a policeman’s gun from him. Hysteria, fed by Obama, followed.
Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson, who later stated that Brown had robbed a convenience store before the shooting occurred.[3] Wilson, a white male Ferguson police officer, said that an altercation ensued when Brown attacked him in his police vehicle for control of Wilson’s service pistol. The struggle continued until the pistol fired.[4] Johnson said that Wilson initiated a confrontation by grabbing Brown by the neck through Wilson’s patrol car window, threatening him and then shooting at him.[5] At this point, both Wilson and Johnson state that Brown and Johnson fled, with Wilson pursuing Brown shortly thereafter. Wilson stated that Brown stopped and charged him after a short pursuit. Johnson contradicted this account, stating that Brown turned around with his hands raised after Wilson shot at his back. According to Johnson, [ the co-robber] Wilson then shot Brown multiple times until Brown fell to the ground.
The controversy was fueled by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama’s black former college radical “Wing Man” as he put it.
The Department of Justice investigation into the shooting determined witnesses who corroborated Wilson’s account were credible while those who contradicted Wilson’s account were not.
The officer was not indicted but riots still took place.
Peaceful protests and civil disorder broke out the day following Brown’s shooting and lasted for several days. This was in part due to the belief among many that Brown was surrendering, as well as longstanding racial tensions between the minority-black population and the majority-white city government and police.[149] As the details of the original shooting event emerged from investigators, police grappled with establishing curfews and maintaining order, while members of the Ferguson community demonstrated in various ways in the vicinity of the original shooting.
“Peaceful protests” included burning down much of the town.
The Ferguson riots were preceded by the 2012 shooting of teenage thug Trayvon Martin. who had been kicked out of her house by his mother and sent to live with his father. He was shot by a local resident who was on neighborhood patrol and who had reported him to police. The media version of the story has many distortions. One of many was that the shooter, named George Zimmerman, was white. In fact he was of mixed race, largely Hispanic. Apparently, Martin saw Zimmerman watching him and attacked. In the struggle, Martin was shot to death.
As Martin was returning from the store to the Twin Lakes neighborhood, George Zimmerman, a volunteer Neighborhood Watch person, spotted Martin, who was 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) tall and weighed 158 pounds (72 kg) at the time of his death.[9] Zimmerman called Sanford police to report Martin, who he said appeared “suspicious”. There was an altercation between the two individuals in which Zimmerman shot Martin, killing him. Zimmerman claimed self-defense[1] and was eventually charged in Martin’s death. On June 10, 2013, Zimmerman’s trial began in Sanford and on July 13, a jury acquitted him of second-degree murder and of manslaughter charges.
Among other items omitted from the media version was that Martin was attempting to buy a drug called Dextromethorphan, which is a component of a popular drug cocktail called “Purple drank.”
As usual, Obama inserted himself into the controversy.
At a White House press conference in March, President Obama was asked about the Martin shooting, and said, “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon and I think they [his parents] are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves. Much of the media coverage had used an old photo of Martin in which he was a child.
What came next and led to the grandfather of all riots was the George Floyd case.
Floyd was a career criminal who attempted to pass counterfeit 20 dollar bills. The Minneapolis police were called and they attempted to arrest him. He resisted and may have swallowed his drugs to conceal them.
In a call to 911, made at 20:01, the employee told the operator he had demanded the cigarettes back but “he [Floyd] doesn’t want to do that”, according to a transcript released by authorities.
The employee said the man appeared “drunk” and “not in control of himself”, the transcript says.
Shortly after the call, at around 20:08, two police officers arrived. Mr Floyd was sitting with two other people in a car parked around the corner.
It was when officers tried to put Mr Floyd in their squad car that a struggle ensued.
The first two officers were rookies. In a fatal moment, they called for help and Derek Chauvin, a senior policeman arrived.
That’s when witnesses started to film Mr Floyd, who appeared to be in a distressed state. These moments, captured on multiple mobile phones and shared widely on social media, would prove to be Mr Floyd’s last.
Mr Floyd was restrained by officers, while Mr Chauvin placed his left knee between his head and neck.
For more than nine minutes, Mr Chauvin kept his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck, the prosecutors say. The duration was initially given as eight minutes and 46 seconds but Minnesota prosecutors have since revised the time.
The argument is about Chauvin kneeling on his neck but note he was in “distress” before Chauvin arrived. Like the Rodney King incident, the public for the first time saw a video of a violent arrest. Floyd died with a lethal level of drugs in his system but Chauvin was accused of murder. Chauvin was convicted after being denied a change in venue. Jurors were obviously intimidated, including attempts to follow the bus taking them to and from the courthouse which was barricaded like a fortress. When Chauvin attempted to appeal his conviction, he could not find a lawyer to represent him.
Massive riots followed. Racial harmony will not recover for decades, if ever. The installation of old racist Joe Biden and his crime family will prolong any attempt at recovery.