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Get the Facts... Then post, or don't

The song YMCA, which is very fun and catchy, has been part of the sound track of my life. Yet I always assumed, or understood, that it had to do with gay men looking for partners at the storied Young Men's Christian Association supported originally by evangelical Christian leaders in the early 1900s. 

So, fun as it was, it sort of bugged me. Not because I want to get into a discussion of gay men, but because the origin of the YMCA as a ministry and refuge has meant so much to so many.

Au contraire. I finally looked it up. The song was not written by or for the gay community. It was written by a Black man in Vancouver, British Columbia, to extol the virtues of the YMCA for urban youth. 

That makes me happy! 

It also makes me feel incredibly stupid that I have been under a misapprehension for decades due to ignorance.  How much is this the case! 

I bring this up this Monday morning for two reasons. I am working on a long post about "Unemployed Apostates" and because a very MAGA person on my FB feed had posted a TikTok video of a family dancing to the song using Trump's signature "moves."  (With some abstaining.) I thought, do these people know what it's about?  Well, I was wrong. Also, what it was or interpreted to be is not what it is.  It's a fun song, Barbara. Get over it.  (Donald Trump's dancing notwithstanding, but it probably helped him get some votes from the crowd that only looks at immediacy rather than policy.)

I am also working on a post on "pearl clutching" over this election by certain Christian leaders.  I did not vote for either of the candidates, I am eager to say. I wrote in Mitch Daniels, although Tom Cotton would have been a good choice, too. But some of the despair  I hear is a bit much, even if I understand it.  

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