Ruth Bader Ginsburg is to judicial activism what Antonin Scalia is to originalist jurisprudence: a recently deceased standard bearer now revered as an icon. Apparently, though, Justice Ginsburg wasn’t woke enough in her thinking. Her words were simply too… sexist, and so the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took upon itself the peculiar task of contradicting its own mission and purpose by changing Ginsburg’s words.

In a lecture at New York University’s School of Law, Ginsburg said that “the decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

All right, so what’s wrong with that quote? Oh, by “what’s wrong?” I’m not referring to pro-lifers who disagree with its substance, I mean why would pro-choice advocates have a problem with it? If you don’t know the answer, then you don’t realize the extent of wokism in America.

You see, Ginsburg, an esteemed champion of the left, betrayed that movement’s new generation by uttering the word…gasp…’woman’! To add insult to injury, Ginsburg also insensitively used female-referring pronouns such as ‘her’ and ‘she’ twice apiece in that snippet. That’s why the ACLU had a problem with it: Ironically, the organization altered Ginsburg’s quote in an attempt to pay homage to her on the one-year anniversary of her passing.

The revised quote reads: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices.” At least, they had the decency to place brackets around the words they inserted.

Aside from how the ACLU’s edited version butchers proper subject-verb concordance (‘their’ is now the all-purpose pronoun of choice), it makes the audacious and outrageous statement that gender-specific pronouns are such an anathema to contemporary dialogue that the words of an esteemed jurist must be altered.

What is hilariously ironic (after all, we need to find some humor amid the madness) is that, as is often the case, the woke crowd hurts its own cause with its absurd political overcorrectness. As Michelle Goldberg pointed out in a New York Times op-ed piece, Ginsburg attempted to highlight how women have been a historically underrepresented and even oppressed group in America, but now referring to gender-neutral “pregnant people” waters down that observation.

When I join many others warning against a wokeness pandemic that has infected our country, many moderate Democrats retort that it’s merely a bunch of kooks on the left who in no way represent the party’s majority. They liken them to the crazies on the right, who insist that Democrats are a secret cult of satanic pedophiles operating out of a pizza parlor basement. But, as establishmentarian snobs often like to say, that is a ‘false equivalency.’ The rightwing nutcases remain hidden, emerging with torches, hoods, and swastikas only on rare occasion (granted, even once is once too many times), and other than the January 6 debacle, showing up in miniscule numbers.

In stark contrast, the ACLU is not a fringe group. Neither is the NFL, which now insists on ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ to be played alongside our National Anthem before games. Neither is the Superman comic book character, whose son Jonathan (didn’t you hear? – Lois and Clark had a kid) is bisexual. And his “truth, justice, and the American way” motto has been replaced with “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow” – a swell thought, no doubt, but yet another attempt to fade America’s predominant global imprint. After all, we wouldn’t want the little tykes reading the comic strip in Cambodia, Ethiopia, or Slovenia to feel inferior.

Why, then, was Ruth Bader Ginsburg not canceled when she dared to use gender-specific nouns and pronouns in her lecture? Because it took place in March of 1993 – shortly before then-President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court – which now seems like a lifetime ago. Unfortunately, far too many Democrat voters who have allowed looney lefties to infiltrate government think their party is still the party of Clinton, or even of Obama.

Granted, Republican voters have done the same, as I most recently pointed out in Dumb and Dumber: Elected Officials and Their Bases (TNH, Oct. 16). But this week’s column is specifically directed toward the masses who voted for Joe Biden, thinking they would experience Barack Obama’s third term. Instead, what they (and the rest of us) have gotten so far is a giant leftward leap even from Obama’s most radical moment.

How can you spot one of these radical woke interlopers? Easy: pay attention to whether they pronounce women (WHI-mn) differently from woman (WHU-mn). More often than not, it’s not innocuous, such as pronouncing nuclear “NOO-ku—lar”; instead, there’s an agenda behind it.

I was recently told that I’m of the few professors at one university where I teach who still refers to students by gender-specific pronouns. Even when I teach online and can’t see their faces, I’m going to presume that ‘Mary’ is a woman and, by golly, I’m going to refer to her as ‘she!’

To put things into further perspective, Amy Tarkanian – former Chair of the Nevada Republican Party and my fellow panelist on Newsmax – recently predicted that soon enough, even the name ‘Superman’ won’t survive, as it inevitably will be replaced with “Superperson.”

I’d like to think that Justices Scalia and Ginsburg, who passed away in 2016 and 2020, respectively, and who despite their ideological differences were good friends, are looking down at all of this and he, playfully teasing her about her pending posthumous societal cancelation, turns to her and quips: “told ya so!”