Originally published at National Catholic Register, June 13, 2022.
Republished by Ruth Institute June 13, 2022.
More articles from Jennifer Roback Morse at NCR.
State Farm Insurance faced backlash when the public learned about their support of a project that distributes children’s books about transgenderism. The fact that State Farm backed away from this project conveys a simple and a more complex lesson for social conservatives.
The simple lesson is that you can make a difference. The more complex lesson is that the Sexual Revolution has insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of society. To successfully overcome it, we must be prepared to be guerilla warriors for the family.
The basic storyline was this. A watchdog organization, Consumers’ Research, released a series of leaked emails, pointing to a program within State Farm to promote transgender books to children. Consumers’ Research describes itself as “an independent educational 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase the knowledge and understanding of issues, policies, products, and services of concern to consumers and to promote the freedom to act on that knowledge and understanding.” Executive Director Will Hild publicized the story with a series of tweets. Major conservative outlets picked up the story, including RedState News.
Upon hearing this news, many people, including me, independently reached out to their local State Farm agents. The company made an official statement, in which they backpedaled from the program. And while the statement is not necessarily everything one might want, it is still a serious backpedaling from the original grant.
My point in bringing this up, though, is not to convince you one way or another about the merits of State Farm. I want to examine the process that led to the company saying anything at all.
Like many of you, I called my State Farm agent. My agent is a great guy and a good friend. He told me that State Farm took the public complaints seriously enough that they wrote to all their agents. According to this information, which was also published here, State Farm has a philanthropy budget of $60 million. They donated $40,000 to GenderCool. So, in the grand scheme of things, this was a minor donation for them. When my agent told me this, I strongly suspected that someone inside State Farm quietly slipped this donation through the process, thinking they would get away with it.
Looking more closely, one sees that the original email came from one Jose Soto, described as a “Corporate Responsibility Analyst,” who lists among his responsibilities, “Florida and National Hispanic Relationships.” (I can’t imagine the Cuban American community in Florida is delighted with a guy like this. But I digress.) As the RedState News report expressed it, “Soto is far down the corporate food chain from State Farm’s Chief Diversity Officer.” I imagine Mr. Soto and his boss, Victor Terry, were surprised by the public outcry.
How did this public outcry happen? There are a couple of steps in the process. The first and crucial step is that someone else close to the decision-making saw this grant in the works. This person or persons objected to the grant but couldn’t stop it internally. (We can only guess as to the circumstances that led to that conclusion.) They leaked it to Consumers’ Research. Leaking the information required someone with access to the information as well as the skills to figure out what they were seeing and the commitment to do something about it. These whistleblowers, whose names I do not know, and may never know, are the heroes of this story. They are the guerilla warriors for the protection of parental rights and childhood innocence.
The second step in creating the public outcry is that there must be someone somewhere who makes it their business to keep track of things like this. That would be Consumers’ Research. I had never heard of this organization before. But trust me: I will be following their work going forward!
The final step in the process of creating the public outcry is: the public. That would be you and me, calling our agents. Or the company headquarters. Asking politely but firmly for answers. Staying in communication if possible. Changing insurance carriers if necessary.
The elites who want the Sexual Revolution cannot do all the legwork themselves. Undermining traditional Christian sexual morality and replacing it with sexual nihilism requires a lot of power and propaganda. Social engineering on this scale demands countless changes to public policies and social practices. The elites who conceptualized all this cannot possibly do all the work themselves, despite their vast amounts of money, power, and influence.
The Sexual Revolutionaries are counting on the cooperation of middle-class and professional-class people to do the heavy lifting of implementing and administering all these changes, large and small. In the State Farm case, some mid-level company bureaucrat, a “Corporate Responsibility Analyst,” was the True Believer who tried to take some ground for the revolution. And it was some person or persons unknown inside the company who thwarted him.
Once the middle and professional classes stop carrying water for the sex radicals, it will be game over. Once the ordinary folks of all ages, races, and religions, make up their minds to keep the pressure on the corporations and others, it will be game over. The Global Ruling Class literally cannot enforce their irrational ideologies on the whole society, all by themselves. Whether you have an insider position within an organization, or whether you are one of a great mass of individual concerned citizens, you can make a difference. Good and decent people can successfully resist the attempts to undermine common sense and traditional morality.
So, State Farm whistleblower or leaker, whoever you are, wherever you are: Good Job! Thank You!! Consumers’ Research, thank you for your work! All you State Farm agents who reached up the ladder to express yourself, Good Job! Everyone who called or emailed your agents, Good Job!
Now, let us all go and do likewise in our spheres of influence.
About the Ruth Institute
The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.
To schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.
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