Sometimes it is right there in plain sight.
Oklahoma state Senator David Bullard (R), a "top Republican in the Oklahoma Senate," has written a bill aims to ban gender-affirming surgery for adults under the age of twenty-six.
You read that right. Adults. Under. The. Age. Of. Twenty. Six.
Bullard claims that’s because "we want to make sure an individual is at their full maturity when it comes to cognitive development."
That might sound reasonable…until you notice that it means Oklahoma Senator David Bullard just claimed that 44.4% of our active duty troops are not "fully mature".
(The math, if you’re curious: 592,979 / (592,979+742,859) * 100% = 44.39%)
But if that wasn’t enough, I direct you to this line, buried in the middle of the story:
Bullard said he didn’t speak with any transgender individuals while crafting his legislation, but said he would be happy to have that conversation.
He did not even bother to talk to one person who would be affected by the bill he wrote.
Not one.
That should be the headline of the story — much like it is for this blog post.
Because that says something big about the character of David Bullard.
Ironically, Bullard, a former AP History teacher claims he’s a "coalition builder" who says that he’s focused on an "even-handed, open-dialogue approach" — something that is obviously not true.
You could just stop there and laugh and cry at the hypocritical bigoted irony.
Or you could wonder REALLY LOUDLY what other people Bullard will think are not "fully mature" or not bother to "speak to" when he’s supposed to be "building coalitions" with them as well.
Teachers. College students. Small business owners.
Or even those 44% of active duty personnel that he seems to think are not mature enough to make their own decisions.
Contact information for Bullard’s office is available on the Oklahoma Senate website.
Image by Kat Love from Pixabay