The Federalist is a uniquely awful piece of shit, not only for its wingnut politics, which you can get at a dozen other internet popsicle stands (and not only for the wretchedness of its writing, which ditto), but also for its culture-war crackpottery. Last week I mentioned their weird attempt to make a porn star's suicide into an anti-gay statement, and now there's this thing about a fucking cartoon:
Similarly, in the latest Ferdinand film, audiences will be told, “Be strong, be brave, be true… to yourself.” In the case of a bull who’d choose peace under his cork tree over fame with the matadors, we might argue that he chose the better. But our world is not the fictitious world of Ferdinand. For the human heart and mind, being true to oneself can quickly lead us to dangerous relativistic thinking.
Actually the relativism goes back to Dumbo, which betrayed our old certainties about how elephants should submit meekly to their bullhooks and do ordinary circus tricks -- and now look; Ringling Brothers is kaput -- talk about a Gramscian Long March of pink elephants through the Institutions! But let us not intrude on Federalist writer Jessica Burke's thesis:
Ferdinand, The Transgender Bull?
OK, let's intrude. Apparently someone has mentioned that the flower-loving Ferdinand "did not want to perform his or her gender as expected," making this cartoon in Burke's view "an emblem of gender nonconformity" and an assault on godly butchitude. Not only that, it encourages the sin of individualism:
But being true to yourself isn’t isolated to just rejecting classic sexual ethics or sex roles. We can be true to ourselves in any number of gluttonous, lustful, and selfish ways. My millennial friends are known to say, “You do you,” believing that each person has the right to pursue whatever makes him or her happy. They don’t want to deem any actions or beliefs as wrong or untrue because they believe that each person defines truth and morality. This thinking has led to a culture that often ignores sin and even calls it courageous.
In “Mere Christianity,” C.S. Lewis...
Ugh, okay, I draw the line at citations of the proto-Douthats. So to sum up, Fendinand, like Dumbo and his mom, should have submitted to the will of heaven and led the children to Christ, but he made them into flower-sniffing do-your-own-thing hippies instead, so you will see him, heathen, bucking and snorting in Hell as you both roast for all eternity.
If nothing else this is a reminder that fundamentalists were nuts well before they embraced Trump.