SCOTT HENNEN IS CORRECT ABOUT WOKE CULTURE, BUT HE FAILS TO ACKNWOLEDGE HIS OWN PARTY'S ROLE.  PUBLISHED IN THE FARGO FORUM NEWSPAPER IN APRIL, 2022.

I would agree with Scott Hennen that woke culture should not win. However, it is worth pointing out that folks on the political right are just as capable of turning into little snowflakes over the culture wars issues as the folks on the political left. Yes, critical race theory should not be taught in public schools, for the same reason that we do not generally don't teach graduate-school level curriculum to kids. Unless you pursue a graduate degree in say, law you can probably take a chill pill and pretend that critical race theory does not exist.

K-12 history lessons should not strive to be politically correct, but they should be honest. Some people on the political right have transformed their snowflake response to critical race theory into this idea that school curriculum should lie to young people about the great big, messy melting pot that is America.

Yes, we need to be tough on crime, be it left-wing criminals in Black Lives Matter or right-wing criminals who tried to overthrow the government on January 6^th. The First Amendment should be respected, but it is not a justification for violence or destruction of private property.

We also need to be equally tough on the causes of crime and that means a willingness to ask tough questions about social problems and whether or not something like marijuana should remain illegal or maybe it should be handled similar to alcohol.

Yes, parents have the right to teach their children religious mores, even if those mores are different from mine. To respect parental rights, schools should tell parents when they are going to talk about human sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity issues and have the option of keeping their child out of that particular lesson. If only that was what the “Don't Say Gay” bills were all about.

What much of the political right seems to overlook, in its snowflake response to LGBTQ youth, is that public schools cannot favor a particular religious doctrine or establish a religious test for students. Think of it akin to what a public school must say about political parties.

Public schools cannot tell students to be a Republican, Democrat, Independent or a third-party supporter. They have to respect the fact that, in a free and democratic society, citizens get to make choices about certain personal matters and that part of living in such a society is to learn how to peacefully coexist with people who you may disagree with.

Hopefully, people across the political spectrum would be outraged if some state passed a “Don't Say Republican” law. Do we really want to pretend that the Republican Party does not exist when teaching civics or social studies? Do you really want to allow young Libertarians to bully supporters of another party or people that do not want to be a member of any particular party? I would hope not, but that is often the situation for LGBT youth.

Woke culture is a problem. Yet, culture war issues tend to involve too many people on the political right and the political left only caring about honesty if it fits into their worldview and only caring about freedom is it directly relates to the people that they like