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Salvo 04.15.2022 5 minutes

Unholy Week

Lake Tahoe A Respite From Drought & Covid

You don't have to be a sex maniac to be a groomer...but it helps.

Holy Week, the seven days before Easter Sunday, is the most important week in the Catholic liturgical year, but I didn’t used to know this. When I was an uncircumcised Philistine, all I knew about Easter was that it meant a basket full of drugstore candy and a week off school. I had literally no idea what Easter meant apart from getting a visit from the Big Bunny. 

At some point I probably wondered: what’s up with the chicks? Why all the bunnies? Why eggs? What do yellow marshmallow Peeps have to do with Jesus? But I was content to run around hunting for hard boiled eggs in the grass on a sunny spring day.

It was only once I became a practicing Catholic that I understood Easter itself was the big finale to a whole process called Lent that kicks off with Mardi Gras. I once made a bad decision in college and went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. So this is Catholicism, I thought, wading through ankle-deep beer on Bourbon Street. Who knew it involved so much public nudity and puking? 

(In case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t. Reader, I left without any hard-earned beads.)

Groomers Get the Broom

This year, Holy Week is full of contemporary horrors. I am adhering to my Lenten sacrifice (chose a hard one this year: no dark chocolate) and preparing for the renewal and rebirth that is the promise of Easter. Unfortunately, everywhere around me are signs of the demonic, hard at work. 

In reaction to the Florida law that prevents radical gender activists from teaching children under 8 about all of the sexual orientations and gender identities they can and should try, Disney decided to side with the activists. Which meant that in the middle of Lent, the mask got ripped off everyone’s favorite furry, revealing Mickey to be a creepy rat with a thing for telling little kids how to touch themselves. 

This Lent we all got to watch Christopher Rufo’s leaked internal videos, in which a Disney employee summit called “Reimagine Tomorrow” devolved into truly disturbed adults practically rubbing their hands together as they monologued their evil plans to secretly insert extremely radical sex education into cartoons. Those dumb parents will never know! 

How about we don’t talk about Bruno’s genitals? How about we “reimagine” my knee in your groin?

When the world’s biggest purveyor of children’s entertainment is revealed to be stacked with rapacious child groomers, you know Tomorrow has been reimagined beyond your worst nightmare. 

Now there seems to be some debate about whether or not ultra-woke Disney employees and Kindergarten teachers desperate to talk about their personal lifestyles with kids are “groomers.” For the record, my teachers never shared anything they did at home with us Gen X kids. We didn’t want to know! If any of them mentioned a wife, we would have shuddered. Someone actually wanted to marry the chemistry teacher? Cringe.

“Grooming” does not, of course, necessarily involve sexual assault. Instead it refers to the preparation—the mental foreplay if you will. “Ever tried this, kid? No? You might like it!” 

Okay fine, I’ll take your word for it that most of those Disney Cast Members and teachers are not pedophiles (let’s set aside for a moment the fact that thousands of public school teachers and hundreds of Disney employees have been caught in child sex stings). 

Teaching children new words and concepts and ideas about sexuality and gender identity is not rape. It’s not actual physical contact. But it most certainly is grooming, especially if the adults are introducing concepts against the consent or even knowledge of the parents, and to prepubescent children. 

If you took my elementary-school-aged son and gave him repeated and frequent lessons on the many genders there are in your imaginary world of make-believe and what each sexual orientation actually means, like, what it entails behind closed doors, you are indeed grooming him for unquestioning acceptance of a world view, lifestyle, and political ideology I do not consent to. 

This is not “homophobia,” folks. No one fears or hates someone because they are gay—especially not a devout Catholic. As Catholics we are commanded to love and to forgive, since we are all, straight and gay, sinners. Plus, just look around: there are tons of happy, gay Catholics—haven’t you ever met a Bishop? Or heard of Pope Francis?

If an adult determines that he or she is gay or wants to identify as the other gender (oh, wait, there are only two??), fine. I will not stop you, interfere, or wish you harm. Have fun, live your life, just please, please—stop making your personal adult lifestyle a topic for second-grade Show and Tell. 

Inconvenient truth: any lesson that requires descriptions of concepts like “sexual attraction” is, yes, grooming. “Sexual attraction” is a concept that should be kept a thousand miles from children! 

Furthermore, “types of sexual attraction” is NOT what normal adults want to talk to little kids about—unless you yourself are attracted to little kids. Are you? If you’re not, why do you seem absolutely desperate to talk to my kids about who they are “attracted” to—without me around? 

What’s it called again when adults lure kids to a fun magical playland with bright colors and toys and hugs and costumes? Michael Jackson had the Neverland Ranch. Disney Cast Members have the parks. Teachers have the playground. 

Here’s an easy test: anyone who says something like this to your child is grooming them: “Being born a boy does not actually mean you are a boy, and if your parents told you it does, they lied to you.”

Therein lies the proof in the groomer pudding. An adult who takes it upon xerself to tell credulous, innocent kids that their parents are wrong, or worse, that they are lying and hiding the truth from them because they are bad people—well, we know what xe is, don’t we folx?

Raising Saints

I too have a not-so-secret hidden agenda to get my kids to accept taboo sexual behaviors. These include chastity, monogamy, and modesty. 

Holy Week is a wonderful opportunity to groom children to accept these radical fringe ideas. My child grooming intensifies on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, culminating on Sunday in the most important grooming day of the year. We’ll ply them with all-you-can-eat candy and Peeps, they’ll collect rainbow-colored eggs, and even get to meet the Easter Furry. He’s got sticky paws and beady eyes and gets a little hot in that tight suit—just like Brian Stelter!

Of course for families like ours, every Sunday is a grooming opportunity to further lure my unsuspecting children into my radical alternative lifestyle. We Catholics don’t call it “grooming,” of course. The pronoun people may euphemistically call their grooming “teaching,” but we call it “formation.” Our pronouns are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Instead of gender identity PowerPoint presentations we use Sunday mass, prayers, the rosary, and general wholesomeness of spirit and mind. So far, it seems to be working! 

To all the ridiculous woke “teachers” in Florida who are mad they can no longer tell five-year-olds the good news about genital amputations: just shut up and teach spelling. 

Better yet, quit your job in kiddie sex ed and go work for a place where you and your unflattering rainbow suspenders will fit right in: Disney World. I bet there’s an oversized rat suit waiting—with your name on it.

The American Mind presents a range of perspectives. Views are writers’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Claremont Institute.

The American Mind is a publication of the Claremont Institute, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to restoring the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. Interested in supporting our work? Gifts to the Claremont Institute are tax-deductible.

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