McHenry County Board: LGBTQ+ Surprise
County Board member springs LGBTQ+ “Pride” surprise that violatesmore than protocol
Individual liberty threatened by continued demands for ‘equity’
By RICH ROSTRON
The Response
05/20/2023
Though a version similar to the one passed last year made it out of committee and was included in the agenda packet for the full board to consider during its general May board meeting, Ness sprung her revisions on the board, along with a highly emotional diatribe, at the meeting Tuesday, May 16.
Ness said that she considered the proclamation passed out of committee “a scathing rebuke … the death of a thousand cuts.”
In some sense, the entire discussion is pointless. The McHenry County Board starts virtually every meeting naming this proclamation and that proclamation. As I jokingly suggested to someone the other day, it’s like naming the third Tuesday in August Chocolate Chip Cookie Day; it doesn’t really mean anything. Additionally, virtually all the concerns of the LGBTQ+ community have been addressed.
Ness spoke about how she and her partner used to have to hide their relationship; how they would make another bed look slept in incase the fire department was called in the middle of the night. She spoke about receiving hate mail when, today, after years of indoctrinating children to embrace equity along with LGBTQ+, it takes more courage to take a stand against the LGBTQ+ wave that is washing over our culture.
Some proclamations have more value. For instance, at the same meeting, May was designated by the McHenry County Board as Motorcycle Awareness Month. This has real value because, with greater awareness, to the degree that people in the county hear about the proclamation, some may be reminded to look out for motorcycles and lives may be saved (ABATE promotes motorcycle safety and the writer was previously a president of a chapter of the organization).
In reality, the expanded verbiage, which goes to some lengths to condemn America with language about how gays were “… marginalized throughout the history of the United States (actually a global attitude),” is not likely to have a fraction of the influence Ness is hoping for. A few will see the headline in the fading daily Leftist McHenry County publication about how some changes were made. But few will read far enough to see some reference to the changes and, even then, the story doesn’t really demonstrate the changes.
What, however, is the real problem?
On the one hand, the problem is the way Ness maneuvered the board to adopt her version of the proclamation. She couldn’t get hers through committee, so she sprung a tearful surprise on the board, to promote her personal agenda. But the problem is actually bigger than that.
The real problem is that the LGBTQ+ community is a willing tool of the Left’s vision for a socialist society. With equity, all things are equal, and individual judgement is subjugated to the gods of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Ness’s version of the proclamation expounds on the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community to America and our society. But she misses the point that none of those contributions would have been possible without the relationships for which LGBTQ+ folk wish to be compared as equals, those relationships to which we all owe our existence.
Some board members who might have opposed Ness’s revisions – who might have felt that the prior version was more than sufficient – may have held their tongues knowing that they would be excoriated by the Left and its media lapdogs for daring to speak against anything promoting the sacred cow of LGBTQ+.
Terms like racist and homophobe, as well as transphobe, etc., are so highly charged that few dare to run the risk of being seen anywhere near those targets lest they find themselves wearing the targets and taking incoming fire. In the process, reasonable discussion about the topics is cut off before it can get started. We’re seeing the effects of this on our currently unhinged society as a whole.
The idea that those of the LGBTQ+ community should not be persecuted for the lifestyles they chose is easily acceptable. But that does not justify demanding that everyone else endorse their choices. And it doesn’t even begin to justify the indoctrination of generations of children to see the world through their perspective.
In the process of pushing equity, the LGBTQ+ community has become a threat to individual liberty. They are unwilling to accept tolerance or a natural development of acceptance that has already come far; they embrace social engineering instead. But, in the process, they establish the principle that social engineering is an acceptable tool. Social engineering has been tried before and they may want to consider how that’s
worked out in the past. There may be some things in the world more important than forcing and manipulating everyone to like you and agree with you.
2023 MCB Pride Month Proclamation.pdf