Disregarding The Body – Podcast
The Crisis of our Time
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art
Companion Posts
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Starting Again
I was born in the sixties. But I am not a child of the 60’s. My family was lower-middle class, and by the standards of the time, traditional in most every way. Dad was a minister. If he or mom had lived into their 90’s they would not have imagined the social changes we have witnessed in the last 20 years. It would be too easy to say the sexual revolution of the 60’s caused all this change, as some conservatives maintain. But the roots of this change go back much further than the swinging 60’s.
So I’m embarking with some misgivings on a survey of cultural history. There are deep intellectual and cultural traditions that have shaped our everyday lives. We’ve come to a point in the Western world where the statement “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” is comprehensible to many public leaders, at least in public. That phrase would be completely incomprehensible to my parent’s generation, in public or private, not to mention every preceding generation. It is still incomprehensible to many, if not most people today. But if you express your bewilderment in public, say at many workplaces in the Western world, increasingly the odds are you will be regarded as stupid, immoral or worse. You may be reprimanded for your irrational “phobia.” You might even have your career derailed. If you broadcast your view on a public forum, say Twitter, expect the Twitterati to pounce with the ferocity of a caged unfed Tiger. In certain parts of the world you may even be charged with a hate-crime for your expressed incredulity at the latest massive cultural shift. (See the following posts, here & here.)
As a 60’s poet might say, “The times they are a changin.”
The tectonic cultural shift in the last 20 years is quite breathtaking. Regardless of what you think about gay marriage, we have gone from year 2000 where the majority of Americans were opposed to gay marriage to today where normalization of Transgenderism is fast approaching.
A long and winding road brought us to this point. I want to offer a thoughtful and hopefully generous exposition, from a Classic Christian point of view, of how we got here. As I go, I’ll be documenting some disturbing current events. (Read my next post). I hope that even those who disagree with Classic Christianity will find here a fair and readable assessment of our state of affairs. (post continues page 2)
Solution: Make Parents Opt-IN to LGBTQ+ Content at School
This Tuesday’s Supreme Court Case:
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, a group of religious parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, are standing up for something pretty basic: the right to raise their children according to their faith. But the school district isn’t making that easy. It introduced storybooks and lessons about gender identity and sexuality to elementary school kids—without even telling parents ahead of time, and without offering any way to opt out.
That’s a problem. These families aren’t trying to stir up trouble—they’re simply asking to be informed and allowed to make decisions that line up with their religious convictions. This is about the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, especially when it comes to moral and spiritual formation.
The parents point to Wisconsin v. Yoder, where the Supreme Court said Amish families had a right to pull their kids from school to preserve their religious way of life. The principle is the same here. Just like in Yoder, these parents aren’t trying to shut down education—they’re asking the state to respect their religious boundaries.
Even more, the school’s policy isn’t neutral. It selectively targets families of faith by refusing to accommodate them. That’s exactly the kind of government overreach the Supreme Court rejected in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. When the government targets religion—or refuses to treat religious people with equal dignity—it’s supposed to face the highest level of scrutiny. And this policy doesn’t come close to meeting that standard.
During the Supreme Court oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, it was revealed that Montgomery County Public Schools introduced concepts such as “preferred pronouns” and the idea that a child’s gender or sex is “assigned at birth” to young students, including those aged 4 to 6.
Eric Baxter, the attorney representing the parents, stated that the school district mandated instruction teaching that “doctors guessed at their sex when they were born” and that disagreeing with this notion is considered “hurtful and unfair.”
Additionally, one of the books included in the curriculum, Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, discusses a child’s experience with gender identity and pronoun preferences.
The parents argue that such instruction conflicts with their religious beliefs and that they should have the right to opt their children out of these lessons..
Let’s be clear: these parents aren’t asking to ban books or rewrite the curriculum. They’re asking for a simple, commonsense solution—just give them a heads-up, and let them opt out when necessary. That’s not unreasonable. In fact, it’s the least the school could do to respect the diversity it claims to celebrate.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 22, 2025, and a decision is expected this summer. At stake is a principle as old as the Constitution: parents, not bureaucrats, have the right to shape their children’s moral and spiritual education. Let’s hope the Court gets it right.
But wait! I’ve got a simpler solution: OPT-IN
Before any of these controversial LGBTQ ‘lessons’ are taught: Make Parents Opt Their Kids IN to LGBTQ++ content. Then for those who do, you can have a special time for their instruction. The problem, of course, is a lot of this controversial content has been smuggled into math, science, reading & writing curriculum. That needs to stop.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will side with the parents here, but it’s hard to say how the justices will ultimately rule. Still, it really shouldn’t even come down to a court case. Parents shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to opt their kids out of content they find inappropriate—especially when it comes to sensitive, sexual, or ideological material. Honestly, a lot of this content shouldn’t be in schools to begin with.
If schools are going to insist on including materials about gender identity, preferred pronouns, and LGBTQ themes—especially for very young kids—then it should be an OPT-IN system, not opt-out. In other words, parents who want their children to engage with that kind of material should be the ones who take action, not the other way around. Most parents, especially those with preschoolers or children with special needs (like the ones in this case), aren’t okay with their kids being exposed to content that doesn’t match their age or their family’s beliefs.
And let’s be honest—if schools did switch to an opt-in model, you’d probably find that very few parents would sign their kids up for this. That would calm down the outrage and allow the handful of families who do want that kind of instruction to have it—maybe in a separate elective or even as an after-school program.
Better yet, make it a rule that anytime a teacher or librarian wants to introduce content dealing with sex, gender, or identity, they have to get direct, written permission from parents first. Put the responsibility where it belongs: on the schools and educators. Let them explain exactly what’s being taught and why they think it’s helpful. That’s the kind of transparency parents deserve.
If you agree with this OPT-IN Solution, please share this post with others. Thanks.
A Longer Term Solution is Universal School Choice
As of April 2025, 14 U.S. states have enacted universal school choice programs, allowing all or nearly all K–12 students to access public funds for private education expenses, including tuition, homeschooling, and other approved costs. Here’s an overview of these states and their programs:
States with Universal School Choice Programs
- Arizona
Pioneered universal school choice in 2022 with its Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, offering funds to all students regardless of income or background. - Florida
Expanded its Family Empowerment Scholarship in 2023 to include universal eligibility, allowing all students to apply for private school funding. - West Virginia
Implemented the Hope Scholarship Program in 2021, providing ESAs to all students, making it one of the earliest adopters of universal school choice. - Iowa
Launched the Students First Act in 2023, establishing ESAs for all students to attend private schools. - Arkansas
Passed the LEARNS Act in 2023, creating a universal ESA program for students statewide. - Utah
Enacted H.B. 215 in 2023, establishing a universal ESA program open to all students, regardless of income or disability status. - Indiana
Expanded its Choice Scholarship Program in 2023 to remove income limits, effectively making it a universal voucher program. - North Carolina
Approved legislation in 2023 to make its Opportunity Scholarship Program universally available to all K–12 students. - Ohio
Expanded its EdChoice Scholarship Program in 2023 to allow all students to apply, regardless of income or school performance. - Oklahoma
Implemented the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit in 2023, providing universal access to private school funding through tax credits. - South Carolina
Passed legislation in 2023 to establish a universal ESA program, offering funds to all students for private education expenses. - Tennessee
In January 2025, enacted the Education Freedom Act, creating a universal ESA program that provides families with $7,000 per student for tuition and other educational expenses. - Idaho
In early 2025, approved the Idaho Parental Tax Credit, offering families up to $5,000 per child for private educational expenses, marking the state’s first private school choice program. - Wyoming
Passed the Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act in 2025, establishing a universal ESA program providing families with $7,000 per student for education-related expenses.
States with Recent or Pending Universal School Choice Legislation
- Texas
In April 2025, Texas lawmakers approved a $1 billion education bill establishing a private school voucher program, allowing families to use public funds for private school tuition, homeschooling, or virtual learning. The program is expected to serve up to 90,000 students in its first year, with potential expansion in the future. - New Hampshire
Legislation is advancing to remove income limits from the state’s Education Freedom Account program, potentially making it universally accessible. - Missouri
House Bill 711, proposing a voluntary open enrollment program and universal ESA eligibility, has passed the House and is under consideration in the Senate.
These developments reflect a significant shift in education policy, with a growing number of states embracing universal school choice to provide families with more educational options.
At a minimum parents need to require local schools and school boards to support OPT-IN before any LGBTQ+ content is presented. Parents can then choose what they prefer for their young kids.
[Sources: Becket Legal Defense Fund & Supreme Court Oral Arguments]
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Parents: Take Charge!
When Queer Theory Meets the Cradle
Queering Babies and the Academic Void Where Ethics Should Be
So after marrying shrimp, what’s next? Apparently, queering babies.
In part two of the Citation Needed Podcast pilot, Colin Wright and Brad Polumbo wade into even more disturbing territory: a peer-reviewed paper titled “Queering Babies: Autoethnographic Reflections from a Gay Parent through Surrogacy.”
Let me start by saying this clearly: I don’t toss around accusations lightly. But this paper is deeply inappropriate. Not because it’s about surrogacy, or unconventional family dynamics. But because it tries to sexualize infants under the guise of academic theory—and then gets published in a reputable journal.
What’s the Paper Arguing?
Yes, you read that right. The author, Balazs Boross, attempts to apply queer theory to infants, claiming that because babies defy adult expectations and are not yet “straight,” they are therefore queer.
In short: that babies are inherently queer.
It’s intellectual nonsense—and worse, it veers into incredibly creepy territory.
Autoethnography or Navel-Gazing?
As the podcast explains, the method used here is “autoethnography.” Sounds academic, right? But in practice, it’s just the author journaling his personal feelings and labeling them research.
He reflects on moments like his newborn daughter’s instinctual attempt to nurse from him—an entirely non-sexual, biological behavior—and describes it as “animalistic and perverse.” He says there wasn’t “much intimacy or innocence there.”
Frankly, that’s horrifying. That’s not academic analysis. That’s projecting adult notions of sexuality onto infants, and then publishing it as research.
When Theory Becomes Dangerous
The problem here isn’t just the lack of scholarly rigor. It’s the loss of moral grounding.
Queer theory, as used here, is obsessed with destabilizing boundaries: between man and woman, adult and child, even decency and indecency. In this framework, nothing is off-limits—not even babies.
Colin and Brad hit the nail on the head: this paper doesn’t just explore taboo topics. It removes the taboos entirely, all in the name of challenging “oppressive norms.” That includes norms like age-appropriate sexual boundaries.
If you’re not disturbed by that, you should be.
Why Are Journals Publishing This?
That’s the million-dollar question. Like the brine shrimp paper, this one was published by Springer Nature—a giant in the academic world. The journal? Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society.
So again, this isn’t fringe. This isn’t some Tumblr blog. It’s the academic mainstream.
And as the hosts rightly point out, when peer-reviewed journals accept “research” that cannot be independently evaluated (because it’s just someone’s diary), the entire peer-review process becomes meaningless.
This Is Why People Don’t Trust Academia
When academic journals become playgrounds for ideology and personal confession, they lose their authority.
We’re told to trust experts. But what happens when the experts are publishing manifestos about shrimp weddings and breastfeeding selfies with psychoanalytic commentary? Public trust collapses—and deservedly so.
These aren’t just isolated flukes. They’re symptoms of a deeper sickness in academia: the prioritization of political ideology over empirical evidence, clarity, and basic ethical boundaries.
Where Do We Go from Here?
We need brave voices like Colin Wright and Brad Polumbo to keep pulling back the curtain.
We need academics who are willing to say: No, this isn’t scholarship. No, this doesn’t help anyone understand gender, sexuality, or ecology. No, you don’t get to sexualize infants and call it “research.”
And we need the rest of us—students, readers, citizens—to stop being afraid to say the emperor has no clothes.
[Citation needed podcast]
Check it out for yourself.
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Stay Human
Brine Shrimp, Queer Theory, and the Collapse of Academic Credibility
Have you ever read something so absurd, so off-the-rails bizarre, that you had to double-check whether it was satire?
Well, welcome to the first episode of the Citation Needed Podcast, where Colin Wright and Brad Polumbo do us all the public service of diving headfirst into the bizarre fringes of modern academia. Their pilot episode focuses on a real, peer-reviewed academic paper—published by a major journal, no less—about a queer feminist cyber-wedding between humans and brine shrimp.
No, I’m not making that up. And yes, it’s every bit as surreal as it sounds.
The Paper That Launched a Thousand Facepalms
The paper is titled “Loving the Brine Shrimp: Exploring Queer Feminist Blue Post-Humanities to Reimagine America’s Dead Sea.” Try saying that five times fast. Or once, honestly. It’s the kind of academic Mad Lib that only makes sense in the postmodern humanities world, where ideological signaling has completely replaced intellectual clarity.
Colin calls it “a surrealist love letter to brine shrimp,” which is both hilarious and disturbingly accurate. The author, Ewelina Jarosz (self-described “hydrosexual cyber nymph”—also not satire), writes from within a framework of “blue post-humanities.” If that phrase doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry: it was likely invented by the author herself and seems to center on the erotic potential of water.
Yes, really.
What Is This Even About?
As Brad and Colin explain, the paper supposedly critiques ecological damage done to Utah’s Great Salt Lake. But rather than laying out a clear ecological argument, it veers into performance art, eco-sexual activism, and bizarre theoretical jargon.
The central claim? Brine shrimp symbolize queer resilience. Water is a “non-binary, transitional, life-giving substance.” And by marrying shrimp and bathing in the lake, participants in this “cyber wedding” are resisting “settler colonial science” and capitalist commodification.
How is this considered science? That’s the million-dollar question—and the heart of what the podcast is trying to expose.
From Method to Madness
One of the most damning critiques Colin offers is how these papers completely abandon the rigorous structure of scientific research. No hypotheses. No data. No results. Just jargon, performance, and subjective “lived experience.”
This isn’t science. It’s ideological storytelling masquerading as research.
And it’s not harmless. When prestigious journals like Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics—owned by publishing giant Springer Nature—give this stuff a platform, it dilutes the credibility of every legitimate paper they publish.
Why This Matters
We’re living in an age where we’re told to “trust the science.” But when “science” includes cyber weddings to shrimp and eco-sexual manifestos, that trust becomes increasingly fragile. If you want the public to believe in the legitimacy of scientific research, you can’t keep publishing ideological fan-fiction in academic journals.
This paper isn’t just laughable. It’s symptomatic of a broader rot in academia, where political signaling trumps coherence, and where the pretense of progressivism serves as a shield against critique.
The Takeaway
So no, you’re not crazy if you think this is nuts. It is. And thankfully, Colin Wright and Brad Polumbo are calling it out with equal parts humor and clarity.
Their podcast doesn’t just entertain—it shines a much-needed spotlight on how far some corners of academia have drifted from reality. And if we want to restore intellectual seriousness and public trust in research, exposing this madness is the first step.
[Citation needed podcast]
Check it out for yourself.
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Stay Human