A libertarian columnist for The Denver Post says he lost his job last week after butting heads with the paper’s editors over his science-based belief that there are only two sexes – man and woman.
Blaming “the victim-centric, identity politics driven media,” columnist Jon Caldara wrote on his Facebook page on Friday that he was canceled from the newspaper even though he was a staunch supporter of LGBTQ rights including gay marriage.
The main issue, he says, was the insistence by The Denver Post that reporters and columnists adhere to terminology standards dictated by the AP stylebook, which come courtesy of transgender rights activists and their supporters:
What seemed to be the last straw for my column was my insistence that there are only two sexes and my frustration that to be inclusive of the transgendered (even that word isn’t allowed) we must lose our right to free speech.To be clear I am strongly pro-gay marriage, which has frustrated many of my socially conservative friends. I have friends, family and employees from the LGBT community. I don’t care who uses whose bathroom, what you wear, or how you identify. People from this community have rights which we must protect.But to force us to use inaccurate pronouns, to force us to teach our kids that there are more than two sexes, to call what is plainly a man in a dress, well, not a man in a dress violates our right of speech.
Caldarawent on to decry the politically correct nature of “liberals in the free press” who fear offending or hurting the feelings of readers and/or viewers so much so that they “mandate” what others can and cannot say:
There was a time when the liberals in the press fought hard to protect free speech. Now they fight hard to mandate speech because, heaven forbid, someone be offended or have their feelings hurt. It’s okay people get offended. In fact, I encourage it. It means we are being challenged. It’s not hate speech. It’s speech. It used to be the press was all about.
You can read his full Facebook post below:
He also praised The Denver Post editorial page editor Megan Schrader in spite of their differences over where they stood on pronoun usage. Schrader told the Free Beacon in a statement that Caldara indeed was no longer with the paper, but she didn’t go into detail.
“I am writing a job description as we speak to fill his position,” Schrader told the Beacon’s Alex Griswold. “I hope that conservative Colorado writers will apply knowing that we value conservative voices on our pages and don’t have a litmus test for their opinions.”
Caldara disputes the “no litmus test” claim, as evidenced by comments he made in an interview with Westword earlier this week:
In retrospect, Caldara thinks the seeds for his sacking were sown by a January 3 offering in which he argued that the AP Stylebook — the Associated Press guide used by many media outlets to determine which words and phrases are appropriate or to be avoided — promotes a progressive bias.
Two weeks later, Caldara wrote another column in which he argued: “Colorado Dems should let sun shine on their hospital fees and sex-ed curriculum.” In the piece, he slammed “Democrats [who] … don’t want education transparency when it comes to their mandate to convince your kid that there are more than two sexes, even if it’s against your wishes.”
If Caldara’s claims are accurate, we can add him to the long list of people on the receiving end of pink slips or otherwise canceled over their refusal to shut up and conform to liberal groupthink when it comes to how to refer to transgender men and women.
One of the few outspoken people who seem to have survived cancel culture on this issue to date is “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling. Last month, she tweeted support for Maya Forstater, a British woman who lost her job last year after old tweets surfaced where she stated biological men could not be women.
“Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill,” Rowling tweeted on December 19th.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY