Of the many politicians I’ve met and interviewed this election season, candidate for Alabama Governor Tim James is among the few that made an impression.
I sat with James for a full half-hour at Neena’s Grill in the lower level of the Marshall County Courthouse in Guntersville one Tuesday afternoon along with Anthony Campbell from The Gleam. We asked questions and listened as James talked about his vision for the state, which included reforming tax law, education and a whole lot more.
He had a straightforward way of talking and tone of voice that implied he had no time for anything he considered nonsense. I didn’t agree with everything he said, and I may not be the best judge of character, but he seemed genuine enough to me, more so than other politicians I’ve come across.
He’s hit the campaign trail hard since then, but his most recent ad released Monday has stirred up a bit of controversy, particularly within the far-left and LGBTQIA+ communities, who have condemned the ad as an “attack” and demanded its removal.
Having read about how awful an ad it was and how awful a person James was for making it, I thought maybe his plain unfiltered way of talking already caught up with him, that he went too far.
Then I watched the ad.
I watched it again thinking I had missed something.
I double-checked to see if I had the right ad. I read the transcript and read the criticisms again to see if I could find what awful thing James had said or done. Clearly I was missing something.
To sum it up, James’ ad takes aim at the admittedly hot button issue — though one might think less so in Alabama — of transgender ideology and the “exploitation” of students, what he calls a “war between common sense and crazy.”
James goes on to call out “transgender men using girls' bathrooms” and “destroying women’s sports,” and takes a jab at soon-to-be Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, pointing out the insanity of having a “Supreme Court nominee who can’t define a woman.”
Those statements were probably enough to tick off some people, but they are not near as partisan as the corporate media would like for you to think, as polls show both Rs and many Ds share James’ opinion, if not in so many words.
But it’s when he called out a new charter school in Birmingham that caters to LGBTQ youth (they leave out the IA+ in their mission statement) that things really hit close to home.
The Magic City Acceptance Academy — that is its real name — is the first “transgender school” in the South, James said, chartered by the state of Alabama in 2021 to the tune of millions of taxpayer dollars.
What’s worse, the ad shows photos from at least one drag show put on by school staff for the young impressionable students.
“That’s not education. It’s exploitation,” James said. “It has got to stop. It’s time to fight back.”
That’s it for the ad. Just over 70 words and 30 seconds later, I was waiting for the threat, the awful scandalous gaffe, but it never came, at least from what I could tell.
But activist groups as well as the school’s principal, Michal Wilson, took it, somewhat understandably, personally.
Wilson reportedly called the ad a bullying tactic and said it was “scaring the hell out of our kids.” He said the students and the school have since received threats, enough for him to beef up security. However, as pointed out by pundit Dale Jackson, those threats have yet to be proven real, let alone legitimate.
In response to the academy’s indignation, James doubled down in a tweet: “A public school using $2 [million] of our state tax dollars to host drag shows for children should anger every parent, grandparent, and taxpayer in the state of AL. MCAA needs to have its charter revoked and be shut down — not because of the children but because of the faculty.”
That last part I could see being interpreted as a threat, one that might make you worry about the future of your charter school but in no way make you feel you needed to up your security.
If the academy were a true private school receiving zero government funding, I doubt James would care what they do or teach. I know I wouldn’t, at least on a practical level.
We live in the freest, most tolerant country ever known to man, so if people want to form their own school where students are free to enroll knowing upfront what they’re getting into, who are we to stop them?
Then again, it’s a bit trickier when the school is founded on the explicit goal of sexualizing children as a core tenet of its mission, under the guise of “acceptance,” of course.
We’ve been somewhat shielded here on Sand Mountain from the cultural wars raging elsewhere in the country, but if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve known it was only a matter of time before it got to our neck of the woods (Birmingham ain’t all that far away).
MCAA may just be one small school with only a couple hundred students, but it’s part of a larger push to normalize gay and transgender ideology for young children instead of addressing the real issues that affect those kids most vulnerable to that influence.
Parents across the country and across the political spectrum are waking up to this agenda and have had success fighting back, like in Virginia, for example.
The Alabama Legislature has blessedly made discussion of such topics to young students illegal, but there are ways around that, as some determined teachers have pointed out.
The Birmingham charter school may go on to flourish for years to come, but if you don’t want these issues being taught to your children in school, then, like James said, it’s time to engage the culture and fight back.
Daniel Taylor is editor for The Reporter. His email is daniel.taylor@sandmountainreporter.com. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com
