Let us examine what occurred at the opening ceremonies.

Many observers were shocked to see the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci of the Last Supper of Jesus with his 12 apostles grossly mocked, depicted in a scene involving sexualized drag queens. Some advertisers were so repulsed by it – such as Mississippi’s largest telecommunications company C-Spire – that their advertisements were immediately pulled.

While the Olympic Committee issued an apology the next day about the depiction and removed their video of the event from the internet, its statement was somewhat shocking in itself. It claimed the depiction was not intended to “be subversive or shock people or mock people.” As much time as the committee had to prepare for the opening ceremonies and with Catholicism being the world’s largest religion, it is absurd to believe committee members gave no thought as to whether any offense would be taken by the depiction.

One can only imagine the violent fallout that would have resulted had Olympic organizers decided instead to portray the world’s second largest religion – Islam – in such a light by having Prophet Muhammad depicted by a drag queen. Obviously more thought was given as to why that should not be done, remembering the 12 staff members of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo who were killed in 2015 by Muslims upset about Muhammad’s depiction on its cover.

What progressives seem to lose sight of, however, is any call for societal balance. It is obvious that in a free society like the U.S. with a population of 330 million, it is impossible to achieve unanimity concerning an issue. But two reasonable rules exist that should be logically acceptable to all.

The first has been stated a bit differently for thousands of years and in many different cultures.

Whether it was written by the ancient Greek rhetorician Isocrates, or the influential Chinese philosopher Confucius, or Epicteus from the ancient School of Stoicism, it is also found in a multitude of holy books including the Talmud, the Koran and the Mahabharata. Its words of virtue are known as the Golden Rule. Its simple message tells us to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

In 2016, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-Missouri) took on the task of providing an historical perspective of the Golden Rule and encouraging compliance with it as a new Congress was seated.

Cleaver recognized, “The most significant building block necessary to develop a federal government that actually inspires peace and tolerance across our bifurcated country is the practice of the Golden Rule.” It is also a societal building block that calls for common sense ethics – i.e., the ethics of reciprocity.

For example, applying such ethics of reciprocity would encourage one who finds transgenderism unacceptable but who is asked to refer to another person by a preferred pronoun, different from such other’s biological gender, would do so out of a common sense of respect for that individual. (It is not unlike others honoring the First Lady’s request to be addressed as “Dr. Jill Biden.”)

However, this is where progressives lose sight of balance in failing to apply a second behavioral rule known as the rule of the Common Good.

It is contrary to the Common Good to mandate transgenders be accommodated to the point of discomforting an opposing biological sex member majority, allowing the former to share segregated facilities based on biological sex just because one has mentally shedded one’s own biological sex. In some cases, such as housing transgender females in women’s prisons, a serious and unnecessary risk to the biologically female majority population has been created.

Thus, application of the Golden Rule would have a transgender’s request – to use a preferred pronoun – being honored while application of the rule of the Common Good would have the transgender honoring the request of a member of a different biological gender for gender privacy.

What is so divisive in our society today is the wokeist effort to disrupt everything that makes common sense by imposing a progressive mindset that ignores the interests of the Common Good, assisted in this endeavor by a government content to allow the ensuing disruption to occur.

Implementing the Golden Rule and the rule of the Common Good jointly would work wonders towards establishing tolerance and mutual acceptance in society – a society that today is chaotic because wokeness ignores both rules.

Foregoing any attempt at eloquence, former President Donald Trump perhaps bluntly said it best with his observation about a basic reality of wokeism. He noted, “Everything woke turns to sh*t!”

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

Dan Hart at the Washington Stand reports that eight publications recently were withdrawn from consideration in Oklahoma.

And in Florida officials said they have rejected 54 out of 132 textbooks for failing to meet the state’s standards, the report said. All of those texts were in math.

The report said the withdrawal of eight books pending before the Oklahoma State Department of Education was the result of a 2020 state law that adds a layer of review to determine if texts are “of poor quality or contain controversial ideologies,” the report said.

Oklahoma Supt. Ryan Walters told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” that it was just a matter of using common sense standards.

“It’s amazing what happens when you speak clearly and you hold folks accountable,” he explained. “We have been very clear — we are not going to allow woke indoctrination or classroom. We’re going to get back to a focus on the basics. … [O]ur parents have spoken loudly and clearly: get the woke ideology out, help our kids learn to read and do math. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

He said lawmakers decided the state would not do CRT in classrooms.

“We’re not going to allow all this sexualized material into the classroom, either,” he said.

The report explained such situations, already evident in Oklahoma and Florida, are growing.

Florida already confirmed 54 of the 132 proposed math texts were rejected for failing to meet the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking Standards or included CRT and SEL concepts.

Walters continued, “[I]t’s a multi-faceted effort to get this ideology out of schools. Number one, you’ve got to go get it out of your public schools. … But number two, you’ve got to get more of an ability for kids to go to private and Christian schools if their parents want them to. And so we have the first Christian charter school in the country that’s going to open up here in Oklahoma. … [T]hese Christian schools, you’re not going to see them wanting to go push some kind of radical atheist ideology. … [G]ive parents the opportunity to send their kids to Christian schools so that your kid is going to have a great education and not have this type of left-wing ideology in their day-to-day school.”

He said the state is not hurting for the lack of access to a couple of books, either.

“[T]here’s plenty of great materials out there. I mean, there [are] plenty of conservatives and Christians that are putting together materials. … The Left lost their mind here in Oklahoma when we made Prager University available statewide for every student [and] parent. … [T]here’s plenty of great material out there that talk about our founding. There’s plenty of great math material that can help students read on grade level. We’re never going to be held captive by woke companies trying to dictate to our state what our education system is going to look like.”

He said getting education “back on track” is just a matter of rejecting the teachers’ union’s ideologies about wokeism, and embracing parents.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.