Back in the 1980s, Bruce Springsteen and other rock stars formed Artists United Against Apartheid and performed a song proclaiming “I ain’t gonna play Sun City,” referencing a resort in South Africa. The song mocked the Reagan administration’s “constructive engagement” policy in South Africa, but rock stars routinely performed in the totalitarian Soviet Union, believing that was incredibly constructive.
One wonders: will these people ever stop complaining? Today, Springsteen and other Artists of Conscience have a burning new cause of injustice. Why, “transgender women” with male anatomy must be allowed to celebrate their chosen identity in the girls’ bathroom. The state legislature of North Carolina attempted to retain the silly old notion that “single-sex, multiple-occupancy bathroom and changing facilities” should be entered based on a person’s actual gender, not what they imagine it to be, and the Left has gone berserk.
The most excitable cultural leftists at exotic publications like The New York Times argue that the rarest of rare exemplars of gender confusion having the liberty to use the wrong restroom is a “human right” on par with those who suffered lynching or racial segregation. This epidemic of “discrimination” – making those “assigned” a penis at birth use the men’s room – apparently is everywhere. Outside the most liberal cities, it is supported by a large majority of Americans.
But here is Springsteen at his most ridiculous: “Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters....Some things are more important than a rock show, and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.”
Go to Dallas, or Pittsburgh, or Memphis or Detroit, and read that quote to people there. They will burst out laughing. Go to New York and watch them saddle up their horses.
The media in Manhattan are lionizing Springsteen for being a “gender identity” guerrilla. ABC’s sappy Steve Osunsami reported “Bruce Springsteen, the rock legend who honors veterans and stands up for heroes, is refunding concert tickets today in protest of the new North Carolina law that rolls back protections for gay families and it stops transgender residents from using the bathrooms they need.” They can't go to the bathroom without Bruce? "News" writers have called it a “transgender bathroom ban,” as if the gender-confused are banned from restrooms.
Springsteen’s not alone: Eighties rock star Bryan Adams canceled a show in Biloxi, Mississippi due to that state’s religious-freedom legislation. The hypocrisy is delicious. It was quickly revealed that Adams performed in Egypt just last month and toured other Muslim destinations in 2010, including Damascus, Doha, Dubai, and Beirut. We’re pretty certain those sites don’t have transgender bathrooms either.
The cultural Left wins one battle -- like the imposition of "gay marriage" on all 50 states -- and then it uses every liberal instrument of corporate and celebrity power to suppress any pocket of resistance to the next new sexual extreme in the states that most cherish traditional religious values. "Freedom fighters" is the last label they deserve.
