America’s political discourse has become rancid, noxious, and revolting. Every day brings another outburst, another insult, another attempt to demean people because of their faith, sexual identity, or race. Too often, people shrug and move on. They tell themselves it is just our toxic partisan politics today. Less educated people will try to claim it is just someone’s opinion, and we need to respect such repugnant views. I utterly reject that perspective. Especially when the speaker holds public office.
For that reason, I write today about the residents of McFarland, just outside Madison, who showed exactly what responsible citizenship looks like. In this ugly midterm election season, this news is a light we can all wish to see repeated elsewhere.
After learning that Village Trustee Ken Boyd had posted comments attacking the Muslim faith and members of the LGBTQ community, residents did not look the other way. They did not excuse it, pretend it was happening ‘over there ‘. Instead, they banded together as a community, showed up for a public meeting, and demanded accountability from someone elected to represent the entire community.
In doing so, they made us all proud, no matter where we call home. Ken Boyd was forced to resign for his hateful comments.
I well understand that there is a portion of the nation, since the fall of 2015 and continuing to recent days, where Donald Trump spews verbal sewage about a Muslim American running for the US Senate in Michigan, or insinuates gay tendencies about a Texas Democratic Senate candidate, who gravitates towards the view that anything goes and anything can be said with no regard for any social norms or standards of decency. Public officials are free to hold personal opinions. But when those opinions descend into bigotry, intolerance, or attacks on entire groups of people, the public has every right and every obligation to respond.
Ken Boyd learned this week that elected office rests on public trust. Once that trust is shattered, there must be consequences. Hateful rhetoric might be the norm on far-right media sites, but it cannot be tolerated in areas where diversity and decency are common structures of our communities, like McFarland.
I am so proud of the residents in McFarland who proved to everyone that silence is just not an option for vile bigotry.
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