Rep. Josh Calloway should resign for his hateful views, but bigotry is his party’s plank | Opinion
There’s been a lot of “misspeaking” in Kentucky politics lately. Third-place gubernatorial candidate Kelly Craft said she misspoke when she said that under her administration there would not be “transgenders” in Kentucky classrooms.
Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, blamed a producer for writing on his podcast broadcast that “LGBTQ is a disease,” which was later edited to “LGBTQ ideology is a disease.” He continued to double down on Twitter Wednesday, complaining about Target swimsuits and gender surgeries on children, even though he knows full well that doesn’t happen in Kentucky. He does believe being gay is a choice because he told me so. He also tried to target drag shows, but that, at least was unsuccessful.
Calloway should resign for his bigoted, hateful and extreme views on people he makes no effort to understand. But he won’t because, frankly, that kind of hatefulness is sprinkled throughout the Kentucky GOP supermajority.
Calloway’s views spring from the most narrow and ignorant sects of evangelical Christianity. But at least he really believes it. Far worse are people like Craft and her running mate, Sen. Max Wise, who know full well that gay and trans people don’t threaten anyone, but cynically ran a political campaign based on it anyway. Thank heavens it didn’t work in her case, but that kind of prejudice is still part of the GOP playbook.
The Calloway kerfuffle came at an opportune time, though, and it could be a chance for a “teachable moment” as they say. This week, the Herald-Leader is featuring a full array of stories about transgender people in Kentucky as they face an immediate future without gender-affirming care, and one further out that promises more threats and marginalization.
Alex Acquisto has written a harrowing, intimate account of some of the families in our state who are simply trying to meet their children’s needs in the wake of Senate Bill 150, which bans gender-affirming healthcare. She opens with a scene of 13-year-old Henry Svec who sat in a Frankfort hearing room as “experts” defined him as unnatural, confused and disordered. Henry and his parents are actually pretty clear about who Henry is and what he needs. They’d like to provide it to him, but the GOP majority has decided that “parents rights” means politicians get to decide what’s best for Henry.
In Opinion, we will have some first person accounts from trans people on the front lines. Rebecca Blankenship, the first trans person elected to public office in Kentucky, and some of her colleagues talk about how the trans movement is used by both the left and right for their own purposes. Ysa Leon, the incoming SGA president at Transy, always believed they would live in Kentucky and work to make it a better place, but now believes they will have to leave because politicians are ginning up so much hatred. Bill Adkins, a lawyer in Williamsburg, is not trans, but he does study history and explains how political scapegoating of minorities can lead to far more deadly consequences. Former Rep. Mary Lou Marzian explains how gerrymandering has given rural legislators too much power over urban areas, which further heightens these kinds of divides.
This past legislative session, extraordinary for its ugliness, did have some redeeming moments from those who have listened and learned. Former Rep. Jerry Miller pleaded with his one-time colleagues not to pass such damaging legislation. He might have agreed with it at one time, but that was before he had a trans grandchild. Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, actually listened to stories about trans children and adults, and tried to craft a kinder version of SB 150. They both listened and learned, and made some hard decisions about what they had previously thought.
It’s hard to admit you were wrong. It’s also hard to govern. But this kind of bigotry is easy. It’s easy to tell children they’re freaks, ban books and gin up people to persecute who’s different. It’s a lot harder to fix tax policy, to pay teachers more, to find a way forward from a coal economy in one of the poorest regions in the country. Bill Adkins tells a story about President Lyndon Johnson who explained that making people feel superior to others makes them easy targets for anything you want. If you’re a lawmaker who can keep your constituents convinced that every gay person in Kentucky is a threat, they might never notice you’ve failed to deliver anything of substance. Again.
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