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Op_ed_commentaries
Trey Kay: The cyclical divide over Pride (ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä)
Kay
Scrolling through Facebook recently, I saw a post from a friend I’ve known since first grade. We’ve stayed friendly; however, we don’t share the same worldview. She’s politically conservative, supports President Donald Trump and often voices concern about the cultural direction of the country.
This time, she posted a photo of a book display at Taylor Books, ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä’s beloved independent bookstore. The display included LGBTQ-themed children’s titles for Pride Month: "The Gay BCs," "My Rainbow," "My Little Golden Book About Pride," "I Think We Can: A Visit to a Pride Parade," "What Was Stonewall?" and "How to Be A Real Man" (this last title featuring a bearded man in a pink tutu on the cover). Her Facebook caption read: “This is the display for children’s books at Taylor Books in downtown ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, West Virginia!â€
The comments that followed: “Crazy,†“Terrible,†“So very wrong,†“Insanity rules the day.†One shared an image of a father holding a book in one hand and a shield in the other, repelling a rainbow beam away from his children at bedtime. The message: LGBTQ visibility is dangerous.
I jumped into the conversation and asked — sincerely — what was so upsetting? Was it the books’ existence? Their visibility? Or the assumption they were being marketed directly to kids?
One classmate replied: “Trey, these are children’s books talking about LGBTQ issues. Why? Children don’t have these issues unless they are influenced.â€
It’s an old claim — that LGBTQ people are “grooming†children — one that goes back decades. When I was young, gay people were often portrayed as dangerous or sick. Calling a book harmful simply because it features LGBTQ people feels like the same fear, just repackaged.
I thought we’d moved past this. Most of us know someone who is gay or trans. They’re our friends, co-workers, neighbors and family. We’ve seen marriage equality become law. For a while, it felt like America had shifted toward inclusion. But lately, I wonder: Was that a high-water mark? Are we watching the tide recede?
What struck me most wasn’t just the anger, but how easily falsehoods spread. The Facebook post made it sound like the display was in the store’s children’s section. But I went to Taylor Books. It wasn’t in the kids’ area. It was right up front — clearly a Pride Month display and it included material geared toward adults, as well.
Some commenters said they planned to call Taylor Books to complain. As someone who reported on the 1974 Kanawha County textbook controversy, I see the pattern: protests, book bans, moral panic. It’s a familiar dance.
Step-ball-change: “LGBTQ lifestyle is perverse. Children must be protected.†One-two. 
Counter-step: “I’m not immoral or a predator just because I’m gay.†Three-four.
 Pivot, spin, return to starting position. Repeat next June.
That’s what saddens me — the stuck-ness. The circularity. The refusal to open the book, literally or figuratively, and ask what’s actually inside. So much of this is just judging a book by its cover.
I support the rights of bookstores to stock whatever titles they choose. I also support a business' right to sell material that reflects the reality that many children live in LGBTQ families. I support a parent’s right to decide what books their child reads. In my opinion, there’s no indoctrination in a storybook that affirms a child’s identity or helps a classmate understand why their friend has two dads.
Over the past decade, I’ve hosted "Us & Them," a show about America’s cultural divides — race, religion, politics, guns, abortion, sex and gender. One early episode revisited my own journey with LGBTQ acceptance, including hurtful comments I made to gay people as a teen. As an adult, my goal is to ask: Can we hear each other’s humanity, even across angry lines?
This latest dust-up over kids’ books is one of those flashpoints. And we already know how it usually goes. One person posts a hot take. Like-minded people vent. Someone with a different view jumps in with a counter punch, and the comment thread turns into a social media food fight. Keyboard warriors hurl insults they’d never say face-to-face. It’s loud. It’s ugly. And it rarely, if ever, leads anywhere.
I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that sometimes wants to jump in and throw some elbows. But I know there’s no win in scoring points online. If anything, those battles make things worse.
So, I tried something different. I picked up the phone and called my childhood friend who created the Facebook post. We’ve had hard conversations before. She calls herself a staunch conservative but says she’s open to exchanging views. That’s a place to start.
It might not be flashy saying, “Help me understand why you see it that way.†But it can lead to actual conversation -- a more productive way forward. Because, if we’re ever going to break this cycle, it won’t be through owning a lib or conservative on Facebook. It’ll be through listening. Maybe listening so hard it hurts.
Trey Kay is the host of the West Virginia Public Broadcasting program "Us & Them," which is distributed in partnership with WVPB and PRX. You can hear the show on the stations of WVPB and online at WVPublic.org.
Editorial
Gazette-Mail editorial: Trump vs. Elon: Unfortunately, it matters
The Hindenburg that was President Donald Trump feuding with former red right hand Elon Musk provided, for many, a great spectacle of schadenfreude.
The two most powerful men perhaps in the world getting into an ugly, metaphorical slap fight over the course of several days, taking shots at each other not just in interviews but on social media platforms both men each own was bizarre and great fodder for political gossip. Unfortunately, this juvenile hissy fit has very real consequences.
It began when Musk made some fairly light comments criticizing the president’s budget bill, which will add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit by extending tax cuts for the wealthy. Musk argued it undercut the work he had done as Trump’s hatchet man at the Department of Government Efficiency. The original task was to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. The end result was a disaster that saved very little and undermined the operations of several vital federal agencies. But it makes sense that Musk would want to save face.
Trump fired back that Musk had no problem with the budget bill until finding out it cut electric vehicle credits (Musk is CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla). The president then upped the ante by suggesting that he should cut the billions of dollars Musk’s companies get in federal government contracts. Musk went to his nuclear option, posting that the reason Trump’s administration hasn’t released the files on New York city financier and child sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein (who killed himself in prison shortly after his arrest) is because Trump is in said files.
Exactly why Musk thought this was a “bombshell†is a bit confusing. Trump and Epstein were friends for years. There are photos and videos galore of the two spending time together. It’s expected that Trump would be in Epstein’s black book and private jet flight logs, likely along with many other important politicians and celebrities. That’s not a defense of Trump, but the real question is whether he had any involvement with the girls Epstein trafficked or knew about it and did nothing.
Now, there are many ardent Trump supporters who also don’t think Epstein killed himself but was murdered because he had dirt on so many important people. Two of those individuals, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, are now running the FBI and seem to have lost their fire for releasing the files. Both said in an interview that Epstein killed himself and that’s that. Their sudden turn seems suspicious, but it doesn’t prove anything.
Before the feud kicked off, The New York Times published a story about Musk’s recreational drug use. Musk has been fairly open about his habits in this arena, and just about anyone who has watched Musk over the past year or so can tell he’s high on something, the report suggested things had gotten much worse and that Musk was spiraling.
While cable and internet news channels were gawking at the spectacle and trying to decide what the beef between Trump and Musk means or who won, fewer noted why this public meltdown on behalf of these two individuals was important.
There’s the obvious stuff. Trump is president of the United States during a time when the presidency’s power has been significantly expanded. Obviously, he shouldn’t be spending time engaging in a middle-school food fight. But that’s who Trump is and has always been.
As for Musk, his companies, especially SpaceX and Starlink, do a lot of work for the federal government, even entering into the realm of defense. He’s the world’s richest man and essentially bought his way into the White House after pumping $250 million into Trump’s campaign. Having so much ride on one individual, especially if he’s been strung out while gutting federal agencies and gobbling up private data, is a problem. Consider that Musk is also involved with other governments and was recently offered asylum by Vladimir Putin, and the problem becomes more obvious. Trump has his own complications with Russia.
And who hasn’t been mentioned during any of this? The American people or what’s best for them. This ego clash between two megalomaniacs completely ignores who Trump and, to some extent, Musk are supposed to be working for. And the fallout for ordinary Americans could be devastating. Not to mention this also serves as something of a distraction while immigrants continue to be swept off the street without due process and the National Guard is deployed in California to crush protests.
No one wins in this feud; Americans least of all.
