While I don’t personally believe in a “Higher Power,” I grew up in the South, smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt, and my childhood was never short on the phrase, “The Good Lord works in mysterious ways.” Oftentimes, this saying was used when something crazy happened that people around here couldn’t make sense of, so they backhandedly shifted the blame onto God and moved on with their lives.
But I feel like the ages-old saying certainly applies here, if anywhere. Because if there is a God, I like to think that he or she is absolutely nothing like what the evangelical Right believes, and he or she probably had a lot to do with this hilariously ironic twist of fate.
A new report from Florida Politics has revealed that Florida state GOP Rep. Joe Harding’s home was among those that were damaged in recent severe weather and a tornado in Central Florida over the weekend. Now you’re probably asking yourself why I’m labeling a tornado-damaged home as hilarious irony, right? Well, Harding happens to be the sponsor of Florida’s highly-controversial and highly-publicized piece of Florida legislation that’s been dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
According to the report, the Ocala Republican was not home at the time the severe weather struck his area, but a lot of his family was.
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Harding reportedly claimed that a tornado touched down in his Ocala neighborhood, leaving his neighbor’s home was severely damaged while other houses in the area suffered “catastrophic damage.”
While Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill doesn’t actually, literally outlaw the word “gay,” as some people have come to believe, it does outlaw any classroom or teacher/student discussions about sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade in Florida schools. The bill also prohibits any lessons on the subject in grades past 3rd, unless they have been deemed “age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate.” The legislation would also allow parents to sue school districts.
The bill does not make specific mention of one sexual orientation versus another, but we all know good and well that absolutely none of this is in reference to a heterosexual relationship.
Given my childhood, I was regularly exposed to evangelical people who often claimed that natural disasters were God’s way of “punishing the gays.” I’m beginning to think they had that notion a little backward.
Read the full report from Florida Politics here.
Featured image via screen capture
