What happens when a legislator, so filled with an inflated sense of moral outrage and self-importance that [s]he goes completely off the rails and creates unnecessary work and aggravation for civil servants?
Of course, it’s a rhetorical question. Or is it?
Not necessarily. In fact, it’s far more commonplace than the average non-civil servant would ever experience because legislators, be they members of Congress, a state legislator, or a city council member from Bleeding Gums, Arkansas, feel the perpetual need to feed an insatiable ego by browbeating subordinates (read: civil servants) with demands and requests for, more often than not, trivial information that’s of no use to anyone.
Take the as yet still unidentified Louisiana legislator who got his/her panties in a wad over a link found on a Louisiana Department of Health web page.
The legislator, doubtless a God-fearing, family-values Repugnantcan, saw the word “Pride” on the web page and promptly went into orbit under the assumption that the word itself was necessarily tied to gay rights.
Except the assumption was incorrect.
No matter. DHH Secretary Courtney Phillips was compelled to drop everything else she may have been working on and address this new crisis which naturally posed a threat to humanity in general and Louisiana in particular.
The result was an email last Wednesday (June 29) from LDH Press Secretary Michelle McCalope to four workers in the trenches who it was assumed might know the answer to the legislator’s inquiry.
“The Secretary (Phillips) has asked that we review the website to see if there are any Pride links to anything, anywhere, and have them removed,” the email began. “She got a call from a legislator saying there were Pride links on the website, but we don’t have any more details.” (Well, that’s typical: go off half-cocked with some off the wall complaint but don’t give any details that might lead to an easy resolution of the problem.)
“We’re asking you to review your program offices and other accounts that you are responsible for on the web to see if there are any Pride link on those pages,” the message continued. “If you find something, send it to me and Aly (LDH Communications Director Alyson Neel) and we’ll have it removed.”
Here it is in its entirety:
There you have it. The DHH secretary, Michelle McCalope, Alyson Neel and four unsuspecting civil service employees (that’s seven people, if you’re counting) were thrown into a whirling dervish of motion at the behest of a legislator with nothing better to do than to get all worked up over the word “Pride.”
Well, I checked and damn! There it was! A Louisiana Department of Health web page with a LINK to an outfit called NOLA Pride-WFH. But I did what the busy legislator obviously did not have the time to do: I googled NOLA Pride-WFH to see what they were all about.
Guess what? It’s a mental health clinic in Metairie. Or at least it was. The telephone numbers listed were no longer in service and the Secretary of State’s corporate records indicated that NOLA Pride’s corporate charter had been revoked. (Full disclosure: I was never able to determine what the WFH stood for.)
That was the only LDH page I could find that contained a link to the specific word Pride and it turned out that just a cursory search (without involving any other living, breathing individual) showed that it had nothing to do with any gay organization or gay pride parade.
But so what if it had? LDH deals with myriad health issues, including Coronavirus, HIV, nutrition, dental care, and hepatitis, to name just a few. There was even a link on another LDH WEB PAGE to information on the 2019 National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. But nothing anywhere concerning any Pride timeline. LDH’s mission is to provide equal access to health care to all Louisiana citizens, regardless of race, sex, age, or any other demographic cluster. Would the legislator wish to pick and choose those to whom health care services are made available?
Silly question. Of course [s]he would. That’s the very agenda of the Repugnantcan Party. Make. No. Mistake. About. That.
The person who sent me a copy of the email (it was not any of the recipients) asked, perhaps also rhetorically, “Who does Courtney Phillips work for, a random Republican (presumably) legislator who doesn’t want to see any ‘Pride’ content or the governor, who says that discrimination is not a Louisiana value?”
Ouch! Tough, yet fair question but small minds and hypocrisy invariably make for a bad combination. It’s like the story in the Daily Beast that a relative sent me on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade:
Health professionals, it seems, “are permitted to discuss cases in general terms,” the publication said, and when asked about patients with anti-choice views there was no shortage of interesting tales about activists deeming themselves an exception to the rule.
“A family-medicine physician in Washington, recalled the time a woman ‘whose sister-in-law was the president of a big right-to-life organization’ had asked to be ‘snuck in the back door’ of the clinic where she was employed. Then there was ‘the picketer who brought her daughter in for a procedure and was back on the picket line the next week.’ On another occasion, a woman came in ‘and declared to a full waiting room that they were all sinners and should leave immediately.’
“When I drew her aside, I found out she was there for an abortion, too,” the doctor told The Daily Beast.
Now, I’m waiting until some married, pro-life Repugnantcan legislator or congressman sneaks around to get a back-door abortion for his girl friend who he’s gotten pregnant. It’s gonna happen. We may not hear about it, but it’s gonna happen.
Oops. Seems it already did.
More than once.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pro-life-congressman-reportedly-asked-girlfriend-to-get-an-abortion
Louisiana Voice 
Per Louisiana Legislator Logic, if one is even in the same room and just hears words such as Queer, Gay, Homosexual, they will instantly become one themselves.
Golly, I wonder who it was that used the word STUPID in the Louisiana Legislative Chambers? That, of course, was the reason that now they are all indeed STUPID!
No, John, we were not as harsh as that. Every spring a number of us legislative civil servants would say the circus is coming to town. You know! The regular legislative session and all of its CLOWNS.
Lookout Delta “Pride” Catfish!