You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s.

Deuteronomy 1:17

     Have you ever wondered what some common phrases mean but you are too embarrassed to ask for fear of looking stupid? Thank God for Google search, now you don’t have to be embarrassed any longer. One such phrase for me was “The Emporer has no clothes.” For the longest time I never really knew what that meant, “What Emporer? Which line of designer clothes? Don’t we live a representative democracy?” I was confused. So a few years back I decided to look it up on Google and here is what I found:

    “There is a fairy tale called ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ In the story, the Emperor is a vain man and always wants the newest fashions. A couple of swindlers convince him that the clothes they are making him are of such fine quality that only the most elevated people can see them. He can’t admit that he’s not the most elevated person, so he wears the clothes in the palace, and everyone bows down and says what a fine set of clothes he has because they are afraid to contradict the Emperor. Then he goes out and leads a parade to show off his new clothes to the people (lack of foresight on his part, unless he thinks all his people are highly elevated.) Everyone pretends to admire the clothes except one little boy who yells out “But the Emperor has no clothes.” The moral is that because of pretentiousness and social hypocrisy people pretend to know about or agree with certain things because it makes them look better. And also, I suppose, that the honesty of the innocent is best.”

     Ah, finally, I understand. So the hero of the story is a little boy who has the guts to ask “common sense” questions. And the fools in the story are those people who just go along with the rest of the crowd even though the truth is patently obvious. But of course they are scared if they tell the truth there will be serious blowback, the Emporer will get mad and the rest of the crowd will castigate the truth-teller. But the little boy hasn’t yet experienced real mob pressure like most adults do so in refreshing naivete he calls a spade a spade.

    So, tell me, which group are you more like. the boy or the fools?

    I ask this because I so want to be the boy in my blogs but I fear the duped mob. But yesterday something happened to someone I love and I have to call it as I see it. My niece is a sand volleyball player in California. She plays on her college team and she takes it very seriously. And not to sound braggadocio, she is very good. I was talking to her on the phone and asked her how volleyball was going. She said, “I love it except for when I play teams with transgendered players.”

    “What do you mean?” I asked.

    Well, she went on to explain how there are more and more teams in her league where transgendered guys are playing as girls and, wouldn’t you know it, they completely dominate the matches. After we talked awhile my niece texted me this, “It is really crazy. This whole generation is about women empowerment, yet we lose to men in our own women’s leagues. And we can’t say anything!?!?” She said the last team it was especially tense because the coach was a lesbian and she was extremely defensive of her team.

    So I am crying out, “Look, the Emporer is wearing a bikini now!”

    As I write this I can hear the critic say to me, “Get over it!” The world is different now and you will just have to shut up and go along with the crowd. But why? Why? I might offend someone? Don’t you think my niece is the one offended? She has worked since the 5th grade to get proficient at a sport she loves, but all of that is dashed to pieces because a guy wearing a ladies wig and bikini wants to play.

“Chris, you are going to have high blood pressure if you don’t shut up.”

     I am just a naive boy, that is all, and I see something wrong so I am going to say something. Hopefully, more people will have the confidence to say it too. Recently in our city of Grand Rapids, another episode happened and once again we are not allowed to say anything.

      For the last nine years, the city of Grand Rapids holds a city-wide art competition called Art Prize. It features artists from around Michigan and the world competing to win some of the $500,000 pot. This year (2019 Art Prize) a performing group submitted an application to compete in Art Prize, the name of the group is Drag Syndrome. They are a drag queen team featuring people with Down’s syndrome.

     The venue where the team would have performed is owned by Peter Meijer, a wealthy philanthropist, who after much thought decided not to allow this group to use his venue to perform. His reason seems wise, “The differently abled are among the most special souls in our community, and I believe they, like children and other vulnerable populations, should be protected,” Meijer wrote. “Artistic expression is inherently political, and in making this decision I approached the issue from a content neutral basis. Setting aside the content, the involvement of individuals whose ability to act of their own volition is unclear raises serious ethical concerns that I cannot reconcile.”

     Well, this did not go over well with their sponsoring organization called DisArt. They wrote in response to Mr. Meijer’s decision, “We are deeply saddened, angered and appalled at the decision to exclude Drag Syndrome from a venue they were given…” And they let it be known, denial of their rights and freedom will not be stopped, “While we are saddened to lose this artwork as the venue, THE SHOW WILL GO ON!” And of course it did, they found another venue.

     The Down Syndrome drag queen supporters continued their outrage by saying, “DisArt WILL protect the artists of Drag Syndrome by protecting their rights. There will be another venue announced soon, and on September 7th, as part of Project 1 by ArtPrize, Drag Syndrome will perform in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We hope you will be there to celebrate, to learn, to grow, and to build a stronger, more inclusive community for all.”

     So who is the bad guy in this? The one who will not let the show go on, the ones who say the Emporer is now wearing drag. Who cares that a drag show was once considered a deviant performance of gender fluidity and sexual experimentation. As an article in Psychology Today points out, “Drag queens, otherwise known as ‘female impersonators’, are most typically gay cisgender men (though there are many drag queens of varying sexual orientations and gender identities) who perform and entertain on stage in nightclubs and bars.”

     But drag has now gone mainstream, it is now considered both a celebration and declaration of freedom. Freedom to do and be anything I want. And Dis Art wants the person with Down’s syndrome to have that chance to join in.  But join in with what? And can a Down’s syndrome person really understand the sexual undercurrent of depraved minds?

    We are not allowed to ask that anymore because saying any action is depraved offends the Emporer, our cool and inclusive pop-culture. They rule minds of the fools now!

     We now are living in a time when freedom is without consequence. So, I am saying it, this new kind of freedom is sin. And sin always corrupts, always destroys and always causes a heart to turn away from God. No wonder God has been kicked out of the public square. No one has the guts anymore to say, “The Emporer has no clothes.”