Three wise women at Christmastime

For Rosa Parks, the disenfranchised black woman, to become Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon, the tired seamstress needed to step into the breach and pick a fight on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus one day in 1955 with absolutely no guarantee of success. In fact, it was the likelihood of her failure that made it all the more important for somebody — anybody — to take a leap of faith, with the understanding that important societal change usually only comes the hard way.

It is in that spirit that I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas by placing some presents under your tree in the form of three women who understand and appreciate that there is indeed good in this world and it is worth fighting for.

Let’s start with Michelle Efendi, who, like Parks, was arrested. But in Efendi’s case, it was for refusing to show proof of taking the poisonous jab upon attempting to enter the Massachusetts statehouse in March 2022. Since that time, the government has refused to drop the trumped-up charges against her, and former friends and estranged family members have petitioned to have her children taken from her because of her refusal to drink the COVID Kool-Aid.

It might not be easy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t simple.

The walls were closing in so hard — including being put on a list of COVID “deniers” drawn up by the same Boston mayor who was recently outed for throwing “no whites allowed” holiday parties — that Efendi and her husband moved their family to the free state of Florida.

A combination of factors initially triggered her resistance to the COVID regime: the haste of Operation Warp Speed (even though she had never been “anti-vax” before), the refusal of state government officials to respond to emails and phone calls, and being forced to give birth to her baby while wearing a mask.

“It all felt like an out-of-control situation,” said Efendi, 37. This despite the fact that in 2020 she distributed masks and, at times, even lectured her local officials for not doing enough to fight the pandemic.

“I had never voted GOP in my entire life,” she said. “I voted for Hillary. I voted for Bernie. I was all in. And I believed everything the government told me about COVID. It hurts to have been manipulated like I was. They groom people with this feeling of compassion and that you are doing the right thing.”

“It is terrifying and humiliating,” she continued. “I’m disgusted by the whole thing. It’s been like the Salem Witch Trials.”

Don’t be too hard on yourself, Michelle. You have eyes to see now in the land of the blind.

That is far more than could be said even for a place like the alleged red state of Texas, where 30 miles outside Dallas-Fort Worth, a prostitute last month was discovered sitting on multiple school district committees — including a sex-ed committee! — as well as serving as a classroom volunteer in a small, rural farming town.

Yet this revelation was so unremarkable for Superintendent Rich Dear and six of the seven school district board members that it left the remaining board member, 36-year-old Kayla Lain, to dig in and fight by herself.

As a homeschooling mom, Lain doesn’t even have children in the district any more. But she was fed up with her children’s experience there in the past and knew too much to simply stand by and do nothing.

Lain could get no clear explanation for how a woman who had lived in town for less than a year could sit on a long-range planning committee, a school health advisory committee, and a steering committee for the city despite having four previous arrests, including two for prostitution. Somehow she was cleared to work with kids in the classroom.

Lain also said that the woman, who remained an active escort, found her way onto the school health advisory committee without ever having been approved by the school board as required. Yet no clear account was forthcoming from the superintendent or district staff.

“The superintendent is very tyrannical,” Lain explained. “He sends trespass warnings to people or shuts them down if they don’t stick to the topics he allows them to talk about at board meetings. He masked 3-year-olds during COVID and kept the masks after the governor lifted the mandate.”

After more than two weeks of stonewalling and obfuscation, Lain got the local police and the Texas Rangers involved. And per state code, the moral fog suddenly lifted. The prostitute was told she had to go.

Perhaps the Texas Rangers could also take a look into the world of Irish dance competitions, where transgender usurpers take the place of prostitutes in our next story. Florida resident Sarah Tyler traveled to the Lone Star State earlier this month to participate in a regional contest that determined who would go on to nationals. Rumors were flying on social media that a boy might attempt to replicate what has already happened in far too many youth sports across the nation, but all comments of concern were deleted.

“It was hard to know who was an ally and who would forward your text and potentially get your kid blacklisted,” said Tyler, 41.

And then it happened. A boy who competed as a boy as recently as July “turned up in a dress” and took the top spot from a girl who had won the national championship just a year earlier.

“A few rabid people were cheering, but everyone else was exchanging glances, and we all saw that it wasn’t even close to ‘everyone is OK with this,’” Tyler said. “Then we went home, started networking and calling attorneys. This time, the mob might have come after something we’re actually willing to fight for.”

There you have it. It might not be easy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t simple. Three women said, “Enough is enough.” Here are three wise women who don’t claim to have all the answers but who know a cult or a con when they see one. They refuse to lie down and take it while their children and society suffer for it.

They get it. What’s your excuse?