Rising LGBT Acceptance and the Right Wing "Parental Rights" Backlash

For generations, especially in the South, being white and heterosexual place one at or near to the top of the societal pecking order.  Even "poor white trash" as my southern belle grandmother might have called them were raised above blacks due to their skin color.  Being church going Christians further solidified that enhanced status.  As for gays, we were expected to be invisible out side of the floral and hair salon industries,  Over the last 20-30 years all of this has dramatically changed and the white evangelical Christian and Christofascist crowd is freaking out at their perceived loss of power and growing in ability to impose their beliefs and agenda on the whole of society.  Look at any news story on the GOP/Christofascist anti-black and anti-LGBT campaign masquerading under the smoke screen of "parental rights" and much of the hysteria is being driven by growing public acceptance of racial minorities (e.g., a black president of the USA and now a black Vice President) and LGBT individuals as noted in the latest Gallup's annual Mood of the Nation poll. 

Both these trends threaten white heterosexual privilege - at least in the minds of Christofascists and white supremacists (who tend to be one and the same) - and are being cynically used by political whore Republican politicians to whip their base into a frenzy and and siphon off enough suburban voters to achieve upset elections such as what happened in Virginia this past November.   Donald Trump first tapped into this white fear of lost power and Glen Youngkin, after a very deceptive campaign is following the Trump play book, as noted in the Washington Post:

Youngkin is opting for the path that is predictably causing maximal social conflict and discord, in no small part because Trump supporters expect it of him. He seems to be relishing this conflict himself: Just like DeSantis, Youngkin has threatened to use executive power to force school boards into compliance, though he’s kept this vague. . . . for now, Youngkin has thrown in his lot with those who fully expect a politics designed to maximize social antagonisms, and won’t settle for anything less. “Trump in a red vest,” indeed.

As prior posts on this blog have noted, the parental rights organizations involved in Youngkin's campaign in Virginia and across the country are anything but an organic grassroots phenomenon and are, instead well funded by far right groups and very wealthy individuals (most of whom don't even have children in public schools) and are working hand in glove with Christofacist organizations such as The Family Foundation based in Richmond - a group with its antecedents in Virginia's "Massive Resistance.  - that are pushing "parental rights" in public education in order to censor mentions of race, racism, and sexual orientation and sexuality.  The goal of these organizational efforts is to turn uninformed parents into instruments the Christofascists' will and drain public school funding in order to fund charter schools operated, of course, by right wing groups. 

On the issue of LGBT rights, USA Today looks at the growing acceptance of LGBT individuals and the growing view of gays and lesbians as a normal, mainstream group of people in Ameican society, something that is anathema to the Christofascists agenda.  This is nothing less than a horrifying trend to the Christofascists.  Here is what USA Today is reporting:

The percentage of Americans who say they are satisfied with the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the country has reached a new peak of 62%, according to a poll released Wednesday. 

Gallup's annual Mood of the Nation poll asks people about their satisfaction with aspects of U.S. life and policy areas, ranging from the overall quality of life to the nation’s military strength and environmental issues.

Americans' satisfaction with the acceptance of gay and lesbian people stood out in the 2022 poll because it reached the highest level the nation has seen since Gallup started tracking the trend in 2001, though the peak is statistically similar to 2016 levels. 

Poll respondents also reported a greater level of satisfaction with acceptance of gay and lesbian people than any of the 20 other issues Gallup tracked this year.

And while satisfaction on many of the other issues decreased this year, the numbers on gay and lesbian individuals grew substantially: In 2022, 62% of survey respondents said they were very or somewhat satisfied with the acceptance of gays and lesbians in the nation, up from 55% in 2021 and 56% in 2020.  

Jeff Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, told USA TODAY that the question shows whether gay and lesbian people are "being considered not an outsider group but a normal, mainstream group of people in the U.S." 

He said this data demonstrates a shift from a time "where the public was kind of opposed to treating them the same as everybody else to one where that's definitely the norm." 

"It just speaks to changes in societal norms that we've seen over the past, really, two decades," Jones said. "When we used to ask about same-sex marriage, in the 1990s and even in early 2000s, we would have majorities opposed. And now we have solid majorities that seem to grow at least a little bit every year." 

In the minds of the Christofascists this trend must be stopped, so one can expect the manufactured hysteria over books in school libraries to get worse.  Along side it will be an effort to stiffle any honest history of racism and slavery.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the kind of fantasy world history Youngkin and his supporters would like to reimpose on Virginia.  Read the piece and you will be shocked at the white propaganda that was once openly taught.