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My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

If a person criticizes the unorthodox methods of another person who is working to find the cure to cancer, does that make them pro-cancer?

This is the type of insinuation Brad Kramer made in this column last week, except he’s defending the unconventional and flashy methods of Tim Ballard in his quest to stop child sex trafficking.

The film based on Ballard’s work, “Sound of Freedom,” took “creative liberties” with his story. It also presents a skewed picture of how child trafficking operates, who the typical victims are and why they get ensnared. Moviegoers have their hearts in the right place, but the misperceptions promoted in the film can be disruptive to people who are working on the ground to provide care and treatment for children pulled out of sex trafficking, a process of rehabilitation that often takes years.

In Brad Kramer’s framing, criticism of the movie is apparently persecution by people who are on the side of pedophiles.

Yes, as Kramer states, there is “nothing conservative or liberal about wanting to protect children from sex-trafficking,” yet there are now people who feel emboldened to call Democrats “pedophile lovers” because of the black-and-white thinking that conservatives like Kramer are promoting. Imagine being greeted as a “pedophile lover” by an acquaintance, simply for being a recognizable member of a political party. This happened here in our community. It’s gross, unjustified and uncivil.

Furthermore, Kramer is still wrongly convinced that LGBTQ adults could potentially be allowed to molest children in Minnesota as a “protected class.” He apparently thinks that if we don’t put superfluous language grounded in falsehoods about LGBTQ people’s sexual predilections into the human rights law, they could escape prosecution for child abuse.

The reality is that no adult is legally allowed to molest children in Minnesota, period. But reality is hard pressed to puncture conservative bubbles these days, especially when manufacturing rage against LGBTQ people and Democrats is such an effective way to get voters to support the core goals of the Republican platform, which are cheap labor policies and toothless environmental protections in service to private profit.

Meanwhile, yet another Republican operative has been indicted for sexual abuse of a child. Marty “Cole” Wagner, who once chaired the Alliance for Pro-Life Alabama, was charged last month with subjecting a child under the age of 12 to “sexual contact.” He appears to be a straight conservative man married to a woman, and so far there is no indication that he is a drag queen.

Here’s what is true about LGBTQ people — children who are LGBTQ are more vulnerable to being sex-trafficked than other children because they are more likely to get kicked out of their family homes as teenagers and forced to survive on their own. This is another example of how anti-LGBTQ stances harm children. Accepting LGBTQ children as they are helps protect them from sex-trafficking.

LGBTQ individuals should be loved and accepted, not made political scapegoats nor pressured to be invisible, even in small towns like Albert Lea and our surrounding communities.

What should we focus on instead? Special counsel Jack Smith has Donald Trump nailed down on the documents case, and a judge in New York confirmed that the evidence shows that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll, yet Trump continues to be the front runner in the Republican presidential primary. Party leaders would, in a party that operates on reality, abandon him.

It should also be disqualifying that Trump is promising retribution against the federal government for investigating him. He may be the greatest threat to the rule of law our country has ever faced, and yet he’s being aided by subservient leaders in his party and the right wing media.

Trump is going down, and Republicans should abandon him. If not, voters should abandon the Republican Party. Voters should abandon a party that favors cheap labor policies and toothless environmental protections in any case, especially when they can choose the Democratic Party, which has made the biggest reinvestment in rural America since FDR’s New Deal.

Even some Republican leaders who voted against Biden’s infrastructure bill in 2021 are touting the money that is now coming into their districts, putting people to work and building valuable community assets and large-scale projects.

The U.S. economy is looking healthier, and we are at low risk of going into recession. Inflation and unemployment are down and real wages are going up. The American manufacturing sector is coming back.

“Bidenomics” is working.

We need to keep standing up for truth and facts and the good of the common people because that is what our democracy and the rule of law is based on. And that, for people like Brad Kramer who are wondering, is where Democrats’ hearts and minds are.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.