It’s a story that’s garnered a lot of coverage: The Mayor of Burbank went to a drag event and volunteered his bottom for a public spanking. That was sleazy. Shockingly, the event was open to teenagers 15 and older. However, the leftists involved, from the mayor on down, defended what happened by saying those 15 and older aren’t children. Instead, they’re adults. Consider, though, that leftists insist that people are children into their late teens and even late 20s for purposes of gun ownership, gun violence, and insurance. Apparently, like everything else in the leftist lexicon, word meanings are infinitely malleable to support their policies.
Libs of TikTok broke the tawdry story:
That Anthony engaged in this type of behavior was consistent with what we’ve come to expect from Democrat politicians. What was shocking was the children part. Anthony insisted that children weren’t present, and the invitation did say that the event was “not suitable for children.” The devil, though, is always in the details. First, Anthony was wrong about the 21+ age limit. Second, the invitation makes it clear that, as far as the organizers are concerned, legal minors between 15-18 aren’t “children.”
Saying that young people barely into their teens aren’t children is par for the course for leftists when it comes to sex. After all, California assemblyman Scott Weiner successfully introduced a bill, which Gavin Newsom signed, saying that people who have been convicted of “non-forcible” sex (oral or anal) with a minor 14 or older, if the offender is no more than 10 years older than the victim, shouldn’t have to register as a sex offender. The rule is the same for vaginal sex. Admittedly, zealous prosecutors have been known to go after 18-year-old men having sex with their 17-year-old girlfriends, but the rule really does exist to protect vulnerable young people from predators.
Image: The mayor gets a spanking. X screen grab.
California is also all in on removing parental involvement in their children’s sex lives generally, whether it’s making birth control and abortion available to minors, or shutting parents out of the room when their child goes to the doctor for any reason. “Gender identity,” complete with the package of toxic chemicals and mutilating surgery, is slowly getting the same treatment. If it’s about sex, there’s really no such thing as a child in California, which is the avatar of modern leftist governance.
Moreover, as we’re starting to see in daily reports—and as the knock-down, drag-out fight in Florida over the bill to keep sex out of K-3 classrooms showed—leftists are desperate to get minors involved in their sex lives, provided the sex is non-normative, LGBTQ+ stuff. When it comes to learning about gay sex and transgender body modification, you’re never too young.
Contrast this approach to childhood with other policies that the Democrats want to advance. When it works to their advantage, Democrats will identify legal adults as children for as long as possible.
While young people can vote and go to war at 18, Democrats do not want them to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Under current, Democrat-passed federal law, while legal adults can possess a handgun at 18, they may not buy one until they’re 21.
Speaking of guns, Dems have been touting a study about the tragically high number of “children” who die from gunshots. (Child gun deaths, by the way, are the justification New Mexico governor Michelle Grisham used to justify suspending the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Albuquerque citizens.) However, if you dig into the study, you discover that most of those “children” who died from gunfire were 15-19 years old—and I’m willing to bet that most of them were 18-19; that is, legal adults. (As a reminder, according to Mayor Anthony and the drag show organizers, if you’re 15 or older, you’re an adult.)
I’m also willing to bet that those who died were involved in gang violence. When young people die needlessly, it's a tragedy, of course. But my point here is that, on the left, you’re a functional adult for purposes of abortions, birth control, most medical care, and drag shows, but not when you’re a useful statistic for “gun violence.”
The extension of childhood also shows up in health insurance policies. Under Obamacare, a child is a child until age 26, when the parents’ employers can finally boot the kid off the family insurance policy.
On the left, words really have no meaning. You’re a child when it comes to guns and insurance. And you’re an adult when it comes to sex. One gets the feeling that leftists don’t really care about children. Instead, they care about breaking apart families, breaking down young people, imposing socialized medicine, and concentrating guns solely in government hands—and they’ll say anything to achieve those goals.