This week, shortly after being tapped to host the Oscars, Hollywood star Kevin Hart found himself on the wrong side of the woke social-justice warriors. His great sin: Years ago, he tweeted jokes referencing homosexuality. More egregiously, in 2010, he did a comedy bit in which he discussed not wanting his son, then five years old, to be gay. “One of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay,” Hart stated. “That’s a fear. Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic. . . . Be happy. Do what you want to do. But me, as a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will.”
The left-wing media machine immediately went to DEFCON 1: Hart was clearly a brutal homophobe. Never mind that no one had any evidence of Hart actually discriminating against gay people. Never mind that Hart is a comedian who makes things called jokes for a living. He sinned. He had to pay the price.
So, naturally, Hart both apologized and stepped down from the Oscars.
Now, there’s been a lot written about the puritanism of social media these days — the willingness to destroy people’s lives and reputations based on statements made years ago in jest, without nasty intent. But there’s a deeper problem many on the radical left have with Hart’s statements: He is imposing his own values on his child. This is a no-no. Parenting from a traditional values-based perspective is a threat to children, according to these radicals. And it’s oppressive to even parent from the perspective of trying to alleviate the possibility of future emotional and mental hardship — hardships that are far more likely if you are homosexual, to take the Hart example, for reasons both societal and personal. To say that you’d prefer your child to grow up attracted to members of the opposite sex, prepared for marriage and biological child-bearing and -rearing, learning and growing in your life with someone of the opposite sex, being a father joined to a mother, or a mother joined to a father — this is supposedly cruelty.