USA Today op-ed writer Michael J. Stern celebrated the destruction of Florida Rep. Joe Harding’s home by a tornado after he authored the parental rights bill that leftists have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The tornado that hit Central Florida last Saturday caused up to $12 million in damages and ripped through Harding’s home in Ocala while his family was present. No injuries were reported.
“We are blessed,” said Harding. “It could have been a lot worse.”
In a social media post on Saturday, the state congressman added:
This message is for those impacted by the tornadoes today in Ocala. Please stay out from under trees, there are many hanging limbs that are often referred to as ‘Widow Makers.’ Today was a tough day for all of us. We have so much to be thankful for, material things can be replaced, human life cannot.
In a Twitter post, USA Today opinion columnist Michael J. Stern celebrated the news as a divine act of God due to Harding’s authorship of the parental rights bill that bars schools from teaching sexuality to children from kindergarten through third-grade.”
“I’m not a believer, but the tornado that just ripped apart the home of the author of Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law is making me reconsider. Hey, Joe Harding, God thinks you’re a rotten bigot and just bitch-slapped you,” he tweeted.
These kinds of histrionics are not new for Michael J. Stern. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, he notoriously wrote that the virus has turned everyone “into potential serial killers.” He wrote in 2020:
Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder whether my streak of good luck is about to end, because the person in front of me in the grocery line is wearing a mask below his nose — expelling a cloud of radioactive COVID dust that I cannot escape, short of dropping $50 on the conveyor belt and trying to outrun the security guard.
With alcoholism, opioid addiction or smoking, we stand a fighting chance. But COVID-19 has turned the most necessary part of living — breathing — into a deadly event. If there’s anything that can make us hate our neighbors, it is the possibility that their very existence — every breath they exhale — could be lethal.
As he went on, Stern warned that the potential for becoming a serial killer goes beyond the common stranger at the grocery store or retail outlet, and into our own homes with the very people we love and trust the most.
“What’s worse is the brutal reality that the people we love and trust most in this world bring us the same risk,” he lamented. “More risk, because these are the people with whom we have regular and close contact. Any sustained encounter with those we love — kisses, hugs, laughs, conversations — could bring fever, blood clots, fluid-filled lungs, and death.”