The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals

Trump and evangelical "faith leaders" charlatans.

A piece in the New York Times follows on the theme of this morning's post that looks at the toxic influence evangelicals Christians have on the Trump/Pence regime and the danger that the evangelical driven embrace of ignorance and science denial poses to the larger public. In addition to pandering to his Christofascist base through statements and policies, Trump has filled many high level positions with individuals who are utterly unfit simply because they embrace the evangelicals anti-knowledge, anti-government agenda.  This unqualified appointments range from the current head of the Department of Health and human Services, to the Secretary of Education, to Housing and Urban Development. Add to this cuts in funding to agencies that evangelicals view as hostile to the Bronze Age belief system and it adds up to a disaster as we now see unfolding in the form of America's lack of preparedness to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Here are highlights from the Times piece:

Donald Trump rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise. In the current crisis, we are all reaping what that movement has sown.

At least since the 19th century, when the proslavery theologian Robert Lewis Dabney attacked the physical sciences as “theories of unbelief,” hostility to science has characterized the more extreme forms of religious nationalism in the United States. Today, the hard core of climate deniers is concentrated among people who identify as religiously conservative Republicans. And some leaders of the Christian nationalist movement, like those allied with the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which has denounced environmental science as a “Cult of the Green Dragon,” cast environmentalism as an alternative — and false — theology.

This denial of science and critical thinking among religious ultraconservatives now haunts the American response to the coronavirus crisis. On March 15, Guillermo Maldonado, who calls himself an “apostle” and hosted Mr. Trump earlier this year at a campaign event at his Miami megachurch, urged his congregants to show up for worship services in person. “Do you believe God would bring his people to his house to be contagious with the virus? Of course not,” he said.

Rodney Howard-Browne of The River at Tampa Bay Church in Florida mocked people concerned about the disease as “pansies” and insisted he would only shutter the doors to his packed church “when the rapture is taking place.” In a sermon that was live-streamed on Facebook, Tony Spell, a pastor in Louisiana, said, “We’re also going to pass out anointed handkerchiefs to people who may have a fear, who may have a sickness and we believe that when those anointed handkerchiefs go, that healing virtue is going to go on them as well.”

Trump’s tendency to trust his gut over the experts on issues like vaccines and climate change does not come from any deep-seated religious conviction. But he is perfectly in tune with the religious nationalists who form the core of his base. In his daily briefings from the White House, Mr. Trump actively disdains and contradicts the messages coming from his own experts and touts as yet unproven cures.

Not every pastor is behaving recklessly, of course, and not every churchgoer in these uncertain times is showing up for services out of disregard for the scientific evidence. . . . . But Mr. Trump did not invoke Easter by accident, and many of his evangelical allies were pleased by his vision of “packed churches all over our country.”

Religious nationalism has brought to American politics the conviction that our political differences are a battle between absolute evil and absolute good. . . . Only a heroic leader, free from the scruples of political correctness, can save the righteous from the damned. Fealty to the cause is everything; fidelity to the facts means nothing. Perhaps this is why many Christian nationalist leaders greeted the news of the coronavirus as an insult to their chosen leader.

In an interview on March 13 on “Fox & Friends,” Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, called the response to Coronavirus “hype” and “overreacting.” “You know, impeachment didn’t work, and the Mueller report didn’t work, and Article 25 didn’t work, and so maybe now this is their next, ah, their next attempt to get Trump,” he said.

When Rev. Spell in Louisiana defied an order from Gov. John Bel Edwards and hosted in-person services for over 1,000 congregants, he asserted the ban was “politically motivated.” Figures like the anti-L.G.B.T. activist Steve Hotze added to the chorus, denouncing the concern as — you guessed it — “fake news.”

One of the first casualties of fact-free hyper-partisanship is competence in government. The incompetence of the Trump administration in grappling with this crisis is by now well known, at least among those who receive actual news. . . . Less well known is the contribution of the Christian nationalist movement in ensuring that our government is in the hands of people who appear to be incapable of running it well.

Consider the case of Alex Azar, who as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has had a prominent role in mismanaging the crisis. It seems likely at this point that Mr. Azar’s signature achievement will have been to rebrand his department as the “Department of Life.” Or maybe he will be remembered for establishing a division of Conscience and Religious Freedom, designed to permit health care providers to deny legal and often medically indicated health care services to certain patients as a matter of religious conscience.

Mr. Azar, a “cabinet sponsor” of Capitol Ministries, the Bible study group attended by multiple members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet, brought with him to Health and Human Services an immovable conviction in the righteousness of the pharmaceutical industry (presumably formed during his five-year stint as an executive and lobbyist in the business), a willingness to speak in the most servile way about “the courage” and “openness to change” of Mr. Trump, and a commitment to anti-abortion politics, abstinence education and other causes of the religious right. What he did not bring, evidently, was any notable ability to manage a pandemic.

It is fair to point out that the failings of the Trump administration in the current pandemic are at least as attributable to its economic ideology as they are to its religious inclinations. When the so-called private sector is supposed to have the answer to every problem, it’s hard to deal effectively with the very public problem of a pandemic and its economic consequences. But if you examine the political roots of the life-threatening belief in the privatization of everything, you’ll see that Christian nationalism played a major role in creating and promoting the economic foundations of America’s incompetent response to the pandemic.

For decades, Christian nationalist leaders have lined up with the anti-government, anti-tax agenda not just as a matter of politics but also as a matter of theology. Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council, one of the Christian right’s major activist groups, has gone so far as to cast food stamps and other forms of government assistance for essential services as contrary to the “biblical model.”

When a strong centralized response is needed from the federal government, it doesn’t help to have an administration that has never believed in a federal government serving the public good. Ordinarily, the consequences of this kind of behavior don’t show up for some time. In the case of a pandemic, the consequences are too obvious to ignore.

 Evangelicals pose a clear and present danger not only to constitutional government, but also to the health and safety of the majority of Americans.  Their influence needs to be defeated and they need to be cast out into the political wilderness.

The Christianity Today Editorial Won’t Sway Evangelicals

Evangelical moral bankruptcy is unabated.

Like many, I welcomed the Christianity Today editorial calling for Donald Trump's removal from office.  That said, I viewed it as doing little to break white evangelicals' unholy alliance with Trump for several reasons.  The first is that Christianity Today, while respected, is not read by many evangelicals.  It is well written and tends to cater to educated evangelicals - to the extent that term isn't an oxymoron given that evangelicals tend to be the least educated of Christian denominations in the USA. The second is that the professional Christians who are driven by money and power rather than the gospel message - e.g., Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell, Jr., et al- are totally unmoved by arguments centered on morality.  Thus, the sad reality is that most evangelicals will be unmoved and will continue to confirm to the rest of society that they are morally bankrupt and have no standing to lecture others on matters of morality or faith.  A column in the New York Times looks at this reality.  Here are highlights:

Thursday night, Christianity Today, long known as the “flagship” magazine of American evangelicalism, broke the internet with an editorial arguing for the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump from office. The piece, penned by the magazine’s outgoing editor, Mark Galli, implored evangelicals to consider the “unambiguous facts” of the impeachment case against [Trump] the president, maintaining his actions not only violated the Constitution, but were also “profoundly immoral.” 

The reaction — particularly from non-evangelicals — was excited and swift. . . . . The magazine’s website, apparently buckling under the unusual spate of traffic, was down for part of the evening, but that did not stop the avalanche of coverage on television, news sites and social media.

For many outsiders, Christianity Today seems to speak for millions of evangelicals. After all, the magazine was founded by Billy Graham, the pastor to presidents since Eisenhower.

That assumption, though, profoundly misapprehends American evangelicalism in the Trump era.

Since his 2016 election, in which 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for him, Mr. Trump continues to enjoy their unwavering loyalty. Three-quarters of white evangelicals approve of his job performance, and 80 percent of them remain opposed to impeaching him.

While many conservative evangelicals respect Christianity Today, it is read by a small slice of them, and is unlikely to make any significant dent in the president’s remarkable popularity. . . . .  It did not take long after the editorial was published for the president’s staunchest evangelical defenders, including Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, to react.

Mr. Graham reproached the magazine for invoking his father’s name to support its position, maintaining that his father, who died in 2018, had supported Mr. Trump as “the man for this hour in history for our nation.” He even accused the magazine of being “used by the left for their political agenda,” and representing “the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism” — a smear taken up, not surprisingly, by [Trump] the president himself in a tweet.

As I reported the same day the editorial was published, Mr. Trump’s evangelical supporters have built a powerful network of political organizations, prayer warriors, televangelists, religious media, mega-churches and voter identification and mobilization efforts . . . . In this insular ecosystem, [Trump] the president is seen as a divinely anointed leader, sent by God to save America at a critical moment in history, when, supporters claim, their religious freedom is under attack by secularists.

Mr. Trump’s support is not just about anointings and prayers. It is also about personnel, policy and law — in other words, a government led by Christians who will undo, for example, advances in L.G.B.T.Q. rights. The Christian right enjoys not just regular and frequent access to the president, but virtual carte blanche on dictating policy, as top ideologues have been placed in cabinet positions and other political appointments in federal agencies.

Ralph Reed, a leading evangelical activist and supporter of Mr. Trump, has boasted to his followers, “There are more Christians serving” in the Trump administration “than all previous presidents combined.”

Mr. Trump’s evangelical defenders may truly believe he is anointed, or they may just relish the unparalleled authority he has granted them. Either way, this actual mainstream of American evangelicalism is not likely to give up on its divine leader, or on its newfound power, no matter what the impeachment proceedings uncover.

Is it Legal to Fire Someone for Being Gay?

As long time readers know, I was forced from a law firm years ago for being gay. It has taken years to rebuild my finances, although I will never be in a position equivalent to where I would have been but for the anti-gay discrimination I experienced first hand. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court is about to begin its term on October 8, 2019 (the first Monday in October) by hearing arguments in three cases in which the Trump/Pence Department of Justice is arguing that it is perfectly fine and legal to fire individuals for being LGBT.  The Christofascists are cheering this disturbing DOJ position that some are above non-discrimination and public accommodation laws, while decent people ought to be wondering who will be next to be targeted by Christofascists after gays. Ultimately, these religious extremists want to be able to discriminate against anyone who threatens their ignorance based Bronze Age beliefs.  Allowing discrimination based on cherry picked bible passages puts many at risk going forward, including blacks.  Countless lives would be harmed based on nothing than what boils down to ignorance and superstition. A lengthy piece in the Washington Post looks at the cases and what is at stake.  Here are highlights:

Aimee Stephens never saw how her colleagues at work would react to her gender transition. The owner of the funeral home where she worked fired her first.

Gerald Bostock claims everything was fine in his job as a social worker in Georgia until he joined a gay softball league. Then came the pink slip.

For skydiving instructor Donald Zarda, the termination came after the routine way he joked with a woman when the two had been strapped together shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip for a tandem jump. Something along the lines of, “Don’t worry, I’m gay.”

The three present the Supreme Court with a blockbuster question at the start of its new term: Is it legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender?

The cases will be argued Tuesday.

This is one of the most consequential issues of the term, with more than 70 friend-of-the-court briefs dividing states, religious orders and members of Congress. More than 200 of the nation’s largest employers are supporting the workers.

[G]ay rights leaders say “married on Sunday, fired on Monday” is a possibility in more than half of the United States, where there is no specific protection for gay or transgender workers.The states that prohibit discrimination are not uniform — some protect only gender identity or transgender status, and some differentiate between public and private employment.

The issue for the court is the reach of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, besides protecting against workplace discrimination because of race, also prohibits discrimination “because of sex.”

For 50 years, courts read that to mean only that women could not be treated worse than men, and vice versa, not that discrimination on the basis of sex included LGBTQ individuals. The Trump administration says that is what the Supreme Court should find as well.

That puts the Trump administration at odds with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which decided in 2015 that gay and transgender individuals were federally protected.

Treating a man who is attracted to men differently than a woman who is attracted to men is discrimination, the EEOC reasoned. . . . . Discrimination because of sexual orientation is the same thing, the EEOC said, because it relies on stereotypes about to whom men and women should be attracted.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled for Zarda, and said its contrary past decisions on the issue were wrong.

Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann wrote that “sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.” (Zarda died in 2014, and his case is being advanced by his sister and partner.)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit came to a similar conclusion in Stephens’s case.

But in Bostock’s case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit went the other way, ruling for Clayton County, a suburb south of Atlanta, that Title VII did not protect on the basis of sexual orientation.

In previous rulings on gay rights, such as striking down a federal law that recognized only marriages between a man and a woman and state statutes that outlawed homosexual conduct, the Supreme Court relied on the Constitution.

These three cases concern the text of Title VII. No one argues that Congress in 1964 intended to protect LGBTQ individuals; homosexual conduct was illegal in the vast majority of the country. The solicitor general said that basic fact should decide the cases.

[T]he lawyers point to an unlikely ally: the late justice Antonin Scalia.  In a 1998 ruling in a case called Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Scalia wrote for the court that male-on-male sexual harassment was covered by Title VII even though it is not mentioned in the statute or envisioned by Congress.

“It is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed,” Scalia wrote, adding that same-sex harassment need not be “the principal evil Congress was concerned with.”

“We’re the textualists here,” said Ria Tabacco Mar, an attorney for the ACLU, which is representing the Zarda estate. “We’re the ones pointing to the words of the statute.”

But for the demands of Christofascists and the abhorrent and deceptively named Alliance Defending Freedom, these cases would never have reached the Supreme Court.  What we see is religion - which has caused so much death, destruction and human misery over the centuries - yet again seeking to inflict harm those who do not hold to Christofascist dogma.  The Court needs to reject their demands and make it clear that real or feigned religious belief does not elevate one above the law. Civil rights outweigh ignorance based religious dogma. 

Is America Too Dumb for Democracy?

A piece in Salon ask the question that is the caption of this post.  The Founding Fathers believed that citizens of America had an obligation to educate and keep themselves well informed both on politics and the larger world because doing so was part of making democracy work.  Fast forward to the present day and civics classes where students learned the structure of America's three branches of government work are no longer taught.  Likewise, geography has fallen by the wayside and the difficulty of high school books compared to those of 1900 has plummeted. Leisure reading has declined and on television one sees more and more mindless reality shows and "contests" with serious documentaries relegated to obscure cable channels. Frighteningly, significant portions of the U.S. citizenry cannot locate important foreign countries on a map - 6% cannot locate the USA on a map. Pointing out these disturbing realities of America may brand me an "effete liberal" among Trump's base - or at least a liberal since they would not know what effete means - but the ignorance of America's population together with its refusal to learn from other nations due to delusions of "American exceptionalism: are becoming a threat to democracy itself.  Here are highlights from the Salon piece:

Independence Day presents a good opportunity to consider that many Americans act as if their young country is independent from the rest of the world. The former popularity of the mindless slogan, “My country right or wrong,” offers a perfect summary of America’s suicidal self-absorption. When the fireworks no longer illuminate the sky, the barbecue is down to bones, and the hangovers begin to commence, a genuine act of patriotism would insist on the widespread realization that small-minded chauvinism is not virtuous. One need to look no further than the early stages of the presidential campaign to survey the damage of a country’s inability to look beyond its own borders.

The provincialism of American culture renders its politics both farcical and dangerous. While it is encouraging to see previously “extreme” and “radical” ideas, such as socialized medicine, paid family leave and debt-free higher education, become mainstream in the Democratic Party, it is also amusing to imagine a French or Canadian observer watching American politicians debate a national health care program as if it were a novel concept.

[T]he United States is the “only country in the developed world” that does not achieve universal health care coverage through public funding. Sanders, and his fellow candidates for the Democratic nomination, have strenuous labor to complete considering that most Americans know and care little about the world beyond its borders. . . . a U.S. strategic task force of Education Abroad concluded that America’s ignorance of the outside world was so great as to constitute a threat to national security. A recent National Geographic survey indicates that merely 37 percent of recent college graduates can identify Iraq on a map, most failed to identify North Korea, only one in four could identify Iran or Israel, and among Americans ages 18 to 24, 6 percent could not even point to the United States. If you are among the 6 percent, and you are reading this, that’s where you live. The American perspective on history is as sophisticated as one would expect in a country where Donald Trump can even run for president without eliciting of universal laughter and disgust. Three-fourths of the public is unaware why the U.S. fought a cold war with the Soviet Union, and 41 percent are unfamiliar with the term “Auschwitz.”

America’s perverted priorities of giving tax breaks to the wealthy while its public schools decline into states of disrepair, along with a shallow and superficial news media operating under the demands of corporate ownership, are largely to blame for America’s failures, but the general public is not exactly resistant.

Historian Richard Hofstadter analyzed “anti-intellectualism” in American life in his seminal 1963 Pulitzer-winning book. Decades of  compounding fatuity have created a culture where leisure reading, according to several reports, is at an all time low.
It seems unlikely that those Americans who do crack open a book are studying comparative politics or international relations. For the full picture of how pitiful American culture has become, consider that for many recent years the bestselling “historian” in the country was Bill O’Reilly.

To bemoan the spectacular incuriosity of Americans is not an exercise in snobbery, but a red alarm warning of an impending crisis. The consequences of American ignorance are not academic. A Washington Post survey, two years after American forces invaded Iraq, revealed that 70 percent of respondents believed that Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

American provincialism also functions as insulation of the brain, preventing the average citizen from seeing and hearing the warning signs that history offers into the transformation of democracy into despotic rule. Fascism is not an overnight development, and when your country is earnestly debating whether its treatment of immigrant and refugee children qualifies for the term “concentration camp,” you have already taken a few large steps down that deadly road.

The qualities of Donald Trump, and the zealotry of his worshipful supporters, resemble the images of nearly every authoritarian movement in European, Asian and Latin American history. If America’s political culture possessed some semblance of literacy, its voters would collaborate to consign Trump to the political garbage disposal. When it came to providing basic services for its own people, it would not allow intellectual titans like Chuck Todd to ask Democrats, “How are you going to pay for it?” — as if countries with far less wealth have not already managed to do so.

A friend of mine whose father recently died told me that her brother, who lives in London, took one month off with full pay to travel to Texas, make some final memories with his dad, and attend the funeral service. Britain, contrary to popular belief, is not a mythical, far-off universe from a fantasy novel.

If one wants to drift off entirely into dreamland, envision an America where its federal government invites consultants from countries with better performing health care systems, affordable universities and more effective poverty relief policies to assist in the expansion of the social welfare state.

Instead of seeking outside advice, we will continue to display the symptoms of national solipsism, bumbling along as if there is no reality outside what we can see right in front of us.

The United States of America is one year older today. Only time will tell if it is also wiser.

Ignorance is not bliss nor is it to be celebrated - it is a crisis that threatens our democracy.

The Evils of Religion: Athlete Disowned for Being Gay

Emily Scheck

Ironically, a group of us had already planned to see "Boy Erased" today when I came across this article about a young student athlete disowned by her parents for being gay.  Both the Buffalo News and Out Sports have coverage of the nightmare Emily Scheck has experienced since her parents learned she was gay and disowned her.  It is a story only too common for many in the LGBT community where parents cling to Bronze Age myths originating with ignorant herders and reject their own children.  Schenk's parents' claim that they did not want to force her into "conversion therapy" - a thoroughly discredited and dangerous practice often peddled by quacks and charlatans - seem disingenuous.  Thankfully, she found support  from here girlfriend who launched a GoFundMe page and her college community.   Meanwhile, conservative Christianity remains a toxic evil.  Here are excerpts from the Buffalo News story:

Canisius College sophomore Emily Scheck had just moved back onto campus in August as a cross-country and track athlete when her mother came across photos of Scheck and her girlfriend on a photo-sharing social media site.

That's when Scheck's life came crashing down.  Her parents, who had been unaware their daughter was a lesbian, demanded she come home to the Rochester area, give up her partial athletic scholarship to Canisius College, commute to a local college and participate in counseling sessions. When she refused, her parents cut her off.

"I couldn’t even get groceries, initially," said Scheck, 19. "I was just really relying on my roommates and my girlfriend."

What happened next launched her into a public controversy over whether money raised for a student through a GoFundMe page should disqualify that student’s athletic eligibility under NCAA rules.

After three months, a frustrated roommate posted Scheck's story on a GoFundMe page. Money started pouring in. But when the college alerted the NCAA to the GoFundMe page, Scheck's student athlete status and partial scholarship were suddenly in jeopardy.

OutSports first reported Scheck's predicament last week. At that time, the NCAA stated it was "currently reviewing all options" regarding Scheck's situation. The NCAA revised its position Friday after being contacted by The Buffalo News, and said Scheck could keep the money raised through her GoFundMe page as long as Canisius monitors the contributions.

"Emily Scheck can retain her eligibility and continue to receive GoFundMe donations that assist her with living and educational expenses," the NCAA said in a statement.

Her mother sent her a text that read, "Well, I am done with you. As of right now, declare yourself independent. You are on your own. Please don’t contact us or your siblings."

When Scheck asked her mother why she would do this, she said her mother texted back, "Because you disgust me."

Though Scheck owned a car, she said, her parents removed her from their insurance policy. And shortly afterward, her father drove to Buffalo from the Rochester suburb of Webster with Emily's remaining personal belongings, including her birth certificate, stuffed animals, trophies, childhood photos and clothing. He dumped them in her car and removed the license plates. The family asked her to participate in counseling sessions, but he said that did not mean conversion therapy. The family accepts her sexual orientation, he said. Scheck disputes her father's account.

Scheck said her family didn't change their behavior toward her until after the GoFundMe page went up. In the meantime, she said, she struggled to make ends meet, working two part-time jobs and going to cross-country practice every day. She relied on her roommates and girlfriend until she received her first paychecks, she said, and continued to field difficult and upsetting messages from her family. Scheck said she's not ready go home and be part of her family's plans when for months it seemed they didn't want her.  "As long as I stay in Buffalo and I don’t come home, they’ve made it clear that I’m still on my own," she said.

Another case of supposed "Christian love" that in truth is infused with hatred.  Time and time again I find the so-called "unchurched" and agnostics far more likely to exhibit behavior in keeping with Christ's gospel dictates than the self-congratulatory "godly folk."

United Kingdom to Ban Conversion Therapy

Every legitimate medical and mental health association in America and across the globe has condemned so-called gay "conversion therapy" as ineffectual if not outright dangerous.  Its practitioners are charlatans and frauds, often hiding behind the label of a church affiliated "ministry" in an effort to dodge regulations that increasingly ban licensed therapists from engaging in the fraudulent practice.  Twelve states in America ban it and now the United Kingdom is preparing to ban it nationwide, a huge defeat for Christofascists who use the "choice myth" for propaganda and to rake in money from the gullible.  A piece in The Guardian looks at the movement to ban conversion therapy and to end mistreatment of LGBT citizens.  Here are highlights: 

The government will appoint a national LGBT health adviser and take measures to end so-called conversion therapy as part of a plan to deliver what Theresa May has promised will be “real and lasting change”.

The proposals form part of an action plan published by the Equalities Office on Tuesday. It follows a UK-wide survey of LGBT people that had more than 108,000 responses, billed as the largest study of its kind.

The 30-page plan contains a series of pledges, including to improve the police response to LGBT hate incidents, more support for LGBT students and teachers and improvements to gender identity services for transgender adults.

The proposals, which will receive an initial £4.5m in funding, were welcomed by the campaign groups Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation.

The online poll, which ran from July to October last year, sought views from LGBT and intersex people about their personal experiences and interactions with public services. . . . 68% said they had avoided holding hands in public with a same-sex partner, while 70% said they had at times not been open about their sexual orientation.

In comments released with the plan, the prime minister said the survey had highlighted where more efforts were needed.

The survey found 5% of respondents had been offered and refused types of conversion therapy – discredited techniques often based around religious views that seek to change people’s sexual orientation. Another 2% had undergone such processes.

 The plan promises to end these practices, with the Equalities Office to look into various legislative or non-legislative ways to do so. . . . They are often modelled on mainstream methods of psychotherapy, and sometimes prayer, and are known to be harmful.

All the major UK regulatory bodies for counselling and psychotherapy have banned members from using such methods, as has the NHS. However, a 2015 study by Stonewall found 10% of health and care staff had heard colleagues express the belief that sexuality can be “cured”.

The survey also found 26% of respondents had experienced verbal harassment or other insults in the past year, with many saying they did not report even more serious incidents to the police. New measures to improve the police’s response to such incidents will be proposed.

Penny Mordaunt, the minister for women and equalities, said: “Our action plan is a step towards everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics, being able to live safe, happy and healthy lives where they can be themselves without fear of discrimination.”

May is to host the annual Downing Street LGBT Pride reception on Tuesday evening. Among the guests for the first time will be Peter Tatchell. The veteran campaigner said May had invited him after he was “banned” previously.

In a separate statement, Tatchell called the action plan a “welcome start”, but said it fell short on issues such as the deportation of LGBT refugees to countries where homophobia was widespread. The £4.5m budget was “derisory and insulting”, he added.

The efforts in the UK are the direct opposite of the agenda of the Trump/Pence regime which seeks to rescind LGBT protections, pander to Christofascists, and grant a license to discriminate against LGBT citizens.

National Immense Rain Events: More Proof of Climate Change

While the Trump/Pence regime works feverishly to destroy the EPA and denies that climate change is occurring, yet another phenomenon is occurring: immense torrential rain events that are causing unprecedented flooding and property damage.  Just this past week, Richmond, Virginia's airport - one that the husband and I use on occasion - was forced to close for several hours as parts of the terminal flooded.  Despite scientific proof that storms are intensifying, a significant portion of the Republican Party base clings to Bronze Age religious belief to deny reality and avoid any responsibility for being part of the problem.  It's as if ignorance is worn by the folks as a badge of honor. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the worsening of storms and the willful ignorance of some as to the causation.  Here are excerpts:

Experts say the immense rains — some spawned by tropical ocean waters, others by once-routine thunderstorms — are the product of long-rising air temperatures and an increase in the sheer size of the storms. Because warmer air can hold more water, large storms are dropping far more rain at a faster clip.

Such rains in recent weeks have deluged the Great Lakes region, the Deep South and the suburbs of major cities along the Atlantic coast. Philadelphia, Charlottesville, and Ocean City, Ellicott City and Frederick in Maryland all have experienced major flooding since mid-May. Several locations in Maryland had their wettest May on record, including Baltimore, which tallied more than eight inches, most of which fell in the second half of the month. “Things are definitely getting more extreme,” said Andreas ­Prein, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “You just have to look at the records. All areas of the continental U.S. have seen increases in peak rainfall rates in the past 50 years. . . . And there is a chance that we are underestimating the risk, actually.”

On Friday, Richmond experienced its second-wettest day on record — 7.61 inches of rain, more than the city typically gets in the entire month of June, topping the previous record on Aug. 12, 1955, during Hurricane Connie. The torrential rains in the past week flooded Richmond International Airport, which closed its doors for more than two hours Friday.

Slow-moving thunderstorms on Wednesday triggered widespread flooding in suburban Pittsburgh, where residents posted online videos showing cars, television sets and dumpsters floating down streets and highways. Rainfall rates reached two to three inches per hour during that storm, according to the ­National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

Several stalled storms last weekend resulted in catastrophic flooding of homes and businesses on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, prompting Gov. Rick Snyder to declare a state of disaster in the counties affected. In South Texas, days of heavy rain inundated subdivisions with several feet of water, and the Texas National Guard used helicopters to rescue stranded residents.

Several atmospheric researchers said in interviews that they agree with that perception. They say it is getting worse.

Since 1880, global temperature has risen just more than 0.13 degrees per decade, for a total of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius). The amount of water air can hold is based on temperature — put very simply, the warmer the air is, the more water it can hold.

Theoretically, experts say, an additional 1.8 degrees would amount to about 7 percent more water in the air, resulting in a similar increase in extreme rainfall. But what Prein and other researchers have found is much higher across a vast portion of the United States.

[T]the eastern half of the continental United States has seen the most dramatic change in extreme rainfall. The amount of rain during the most extreme storms in the Northeast has risen 71 percent since 1958; in the Midwest, heavy rain has ­increased 37 percent; in the Southeast, it’s up 27 percent.

And the area covered by each storm also is getting larger, Prein said, another major factor in the increased precipitation. Prein’s new research suggests thunderstorms will become 80 to 90 percent larger by the end of the century.

In eastern North Carolina, a deeply conservative region, most residents say they, too, now believe weather patterns are changing. But here in the “Blue Ridge Bible Belt,” many say God — not man-made climate change — is to blame for the more extreme weather.

Ann Watson said her Baptist faith teaches her that the extreme weather is a sign Jesus will soon return to Earth, and she doesn’t believe in climate-change science. But Dan Watson said he believes that man could be partly responsible for the shift in weather.

Catholics Are Paying the Price For Selling Their Souls to Evangelicals

In addition to being a former Republican I am also a former Catholic.  My departure from Catholicism was prompted by several things, including the horrific sex abuse scandal that continues to reverberate across the globe with few if any bishops and cardinals having received punishment for aiding and abetting sexual predators.  Other reasons include the Church's continued embrace of 12th Century beliefs on sexuality and the lie that one can "pray away the gay," something I tried for decades with zero success, but much self-hate and self-loathing along the way.   Add to this the Church's continued anti-gay jihad.  Only a sick masochist  would remain Catholic if they are gay.  Despite these criticisms of the Church, I always respected the Church's social gospel teachings, something that seemingly is devoid among the majority of evangelical Christians.  As some Catholics have aligned themselves with evangelicals and embraced today's Republican Party, they have rejected the Church social gospel and, in my view, embraced moral bankruptcy.  Paul Ryan perhaps best personifies this, but there are many others.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the moral price ties to evangelicals has taken on Catholics and, I believe, Catholicism.  Here are excerpts:

In 1994, 39 church leaders and scholars — some Catholics, some evangelical Protestants — published a statement of reconciliation. . . . . These were the leaders and the elites: the pastors and priests, professors and bishops, notables and worthies from each side of the great schism. Together, and for what they saw as the greater good, they would overcome the old hostilities dividing rank-and-file pew-sitters.

They had a reason for dramatic measures. For decades, evangelicals and Catholics had struggled to work together even on political issues both groups took seriously, such as abortion and prayer in schools. Old animosities divided them, and mistrust poisoned attempts at cooperation. 

But a new generation of rightward activists, intellectuals and politicians mobilized during the culture wars, attracting Catholics and evangelicals to their ranks. Eventually, thanks to the work of groups like ECT and the pressure of ongoing polarization, relations between Catholics and evangelicals grew so warm that it now seems hard to recall these struggles. But the political pact between evangelicals and Catholics also came with significant hazards. It has, especially recently, become a source of anxiety for the Catholic leaders who helped convene the alliance in the first place. For all their success building a new coalition on the right, evangelical and Catholic doctrines are still distinct. Working together meant that one party would have to make concessions to the other. And so far, Catholic teaching has given the most ground.
 Today, working with evangelicals, a group that identifies overwhelmingly with the Republican Party , means that Catholics must operate within the political agenda of the GOP.

The close quarters produced a new breed of politically evangelicalized Catholic candidates and officeholders who have little use for the church’s social teaching (which includes support for organized labor , immigrants and the poor) but adhere vehemently to its teaching on issues related to sexuality. 
 Among these new Catholics, seemingly custom-made for the GOP, are House Speaker Paul Ryan, a onetime fan of the intensely anti-religious, free-market thinker Ayn Rand; former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who radically shrank his state’s nutritional assistance program and rebuffed Louisiana bishops’ attempt to halt an execution scheduled for Ash Wednesday ; and Rep. Dave Brat, a Virginian who describes himself, dizzyingly, as Catholic, Calvinist and libertarian . This brand of Catholic, a perfect fit with America’s conservative movement, would supposedly “remake” the GOP.

But instead of carrying Catholicism’s compassionate approach to social programs into the party, the Catholics who’ve joined the Republican ranks seem to have adjusted their faith to the party’s interests, at least where economic matters are concerned. Church authorities have taken notice. Though Ryan has enjoyed some support from more conservative church leaders, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has repeatedly issued letters of correction to Ryan’s austere budget proposals, urging Congress in a 2012 letter to remember that “a just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons.” 

Similar statements have increasingly come from Republican politicians seeking to distance themselves from Pope Francis’s teachings in order to remain closer to GOP orthodoxy. During the 2016 presidential primaries, disavowing the pope became a kind of ritual for Catholic candidates.
It’s one thing to insist, as Kennedy did, that church and state are simply separate; it’s another to add that the church is in fact wrong and the state right.
 In July, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a close confidant of Pope Francis and a top Vatican official, indicted such evangelical-Catholic collaboration in an article published with a Protestant co-author in La Civilta Cattolica, a Jesuit journal reviewed by the Vatican before publication. . . . His article was widely read to mean that the church hierarchy had become disillusioned with the 24-year-old political cooperation pact, and Vatican-watchers saw the hand of the pope.

The Religious Right’s Suicidal Gay Obsession

Survey after survey has shown that Millennials are leaving religion in record numbers and by some accounts those who are religiously unaffiliated range between a third and 40% of that demographic. The same surveys also have revealed that the most significant factor in the decision to walk away from religion was fundamentalist and evangelical Christians' anti-gay hatred and bigotry - followed by their hypocrisy and nastiness in general.   Indeed, the latest PRRI survey  cited in a recent post shows that every Christian denomination is losing membership, including evangelical ones and the Southern Baptists.  Among evangelicals, only 1 in 10 is under 30 years of age. Driving away the young and the educated (who tend to be Episcopalians, Evangelical Lutherans and some Catholics, if they remain Christian at all) is a sure form of long term suicide.  Playing numbers games like the Catholic Church which keeps one on the membership roster until one affirmatively demands to be removed can mask the attrition from supposed membership strength, but the PRRI report shows the reality of what is happening.  The irony is that a sexually obsessed and repressed minority within Christianity are killing the entire brand.  The self-composed Christofascist myth that those who have walked away will return as the get older and/or have children simply is not happening.  My own grandchildren, for example, are growing up as thoughtful, moral, compassionate individuals with religion playing no role in the lives.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the Christofascists road to suicide.  Here are highlights:

At the end of last month, a group of Evangelical theologians, pastors, and leaders put out what they called the Nashville Statement on sexual morality. The first thing to note is that 50 years ago, it would have been regarded as self-evident to most Christians. Money quote: “We affirm that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage. We deny that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.” So far, so conventional, especially for Evangelicals.

But you immediately wonder if the statement is going to condemn divorce or contraception or multiple successive marriages or pornography or masturbation or countless other questions of sexual morality that heterosexuals grapple with. And you can search the document for any thoughts on these questions. In fact, it has almost nothing to say to 97 percent of humanity on sexual matters.

What it does instead is condemn the 3 percent. In fact, it does more than condemn the sexual behaviors of gay and transgender people. It erases our self-understanding entirely. Money quote: “We deny that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.” It is not just what we do that these Evangelical leaders object to; it is who we are. Our very “self-conception” is a defiance of God’s will. We sure aren’t part of nature, even though scientists have observed variations on the sexual norm in countless other species. We are merely heterosexuals who have chosen to act out our desires in sexually immoral ways. The words gay and homosexual and transgender describe nothing but sin. . . . . At best, we are beset with “psychological conditions” that lead us into sin and Hell.

What Evangelicals cannot seem to accept is the possibility that for the vast majority of humankind, male and female self-conception does indeed come completely naturally, that it is clearly integral to humanity’s reproduction and rearing of the next generation, that the sexes are indeed complementary rather than interchangeable … but that this is not the entire story. A small minority does not quite fit this rubric. . . . . it does mean that God’s creation isn’t just Adam and Eve period.

The reason so many minds have changed on this question is because we know more about our nature than we ever have before. You don’t have to junk all of Christianity to acknowledge that. Gay people, for example, will be the first to insist that male and female exist: It’s just that we are attracted to our own sex and not the other.

For a few generations now, gays and lesbians and transgender people, by coming out, have been telling our stories, and those with open minds and big hearts have heard us. It is one of the great tragedies of many Evangelical and orthodox Christians that they are not interested in listening.

And so in the Nashville Statement, there is no advice to gay or transgender Christians, except to be heterosexual, dammit. They don’t even air the possibility of chaste spiritual friendship as a way for such people to lead lives not beset with loneliness, or sexual repression of a kind no human is truly capable of without profound psychological distortion. There is no mention of love at all . . . All this constant rhetoric of loving us is therefore phony. You can’t love people without respecting them. You can’t welcome people you are simultaneously dehumanizing and writing out of creation.

[T]heir intransigence on this question is killing them. It’s particularly damning when so many of these leaders just endorsed, voted for, and threw their weight behind a man who has married several times, claimed that avoiding STDs was his own version of Vietnam, has humiliated successive wives, has bragged about sexual assault, who talks of his own daughter as a sexual object, and touted the size of his dick in a presidential debate. On all of this, most of these same Evangelicals looked the other way. But gay and transgender Christians? We are living rebukes to God’s natural order.

I believe that for an entire generation, this question is a litmus test for whether Christianity really is about love, and whether the Gospels (which have nothing to say about homosexuality) should even get a hearing. I can date my own niece’s and nephew’s rejection of Christianity to the day the priest urged them to oppose equal rights for their uncle. That’s why Evangelicalism is dying so quickly among the young. The latest PRRI survey shows that only one in ten Evangelicals are now under 30. It is no accident . . . . This is what the signers of the Nashville Statement do not quite grasp. They just signed one of the longest suicide notes in history. Because what they’re saying is not merely callous. It is manifestly untrue.

Some readers - most comment anonymously, of course - take me to task for lumping all Christians together when I say that Christianity needs to be a dead religion.  Sadly, rather than continually, loudly and publicly condemn the hate merchants within Christianity and the toxicity of evangelical Christianity in particular, its easier for these individuals to attack those who point out what they prefer to close their eyes to and ignore.  When Christianity dies, it will be because of critics like me, but rather those who could have opposed the hate merchants chose not to do so. 

Trump, Evangelicals, Hypocrisy and Moral Bankruptcy

Trump and scamvangelist Franklin Graham

A new Fox News poll showed that 56 percent of respondents said Trump was “not at all” presidential, 55 percent said he was “not at all” a moral leader, 53 percent said he was “not at all” compassionate or steady and 50 percent said he was “not at all” honest.  Yet one group continues to strongly support perhaps the most immoral individual to ever occupy the White House: evangelical Christians, a group defined by their self-claimed piety and hatred of others.  In addition to supporting Trump, these folks also strongly support the GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda where the poor are robbed to benefit the rich and the social safety net is slashed. Indeed, their "values" bear little resemblance to the social gospel message of Christ and instead focus of selectively parsed Old Testament passages.   A column in the Washington Post looks at what I view as the warped, hypocrisy filled world of evangelicals. Here are excerpts:

Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in overwhelming numbers. Evangelical support for the president remains relatively firm; indeed, even as others criticized the president’s remarks in the wake of Charlottesville, evangelical leaders rose to the president’s defense. All of this gets under the skin of President Trump’s critics, who cannot believe that men and women who think of themselves as godly can possibly stomach Trump’s behavior. For such critics, the only possible explanation for evangelicals’ continuing faith in Trump is some combination of ignorance and hypocrisy. Conversations with actual evangelical Christians at a recent gathering here — the Hillsboro Family Camp, where families have met annually since 1972 for four days of praise and worship — suggest a different picture.  Echoing the views of many present, one evangelist on hand told me Trump hasn’t let him down. . . . . “He has to fight all of them,” said the preacher, referring to the Democrats and the media.
 Part of the decision by many evangelicals to support Trump for president was attributable to long-standing differences with liberal candidates over social issues. Evangelicals tend to share conservative positions on abortion, gun rights, border security and the fight against “radical Islamic terrorism,” as they usually make sure to phrase it. But more than anything, Trump’s specific pledges to the religious right got their attention.

So far, they think Trump has kept those promises. He has followed up with invitations to the White House, sought inputon court appointments, stood firmly with Israel and signed an executive order expanding religious freedom in regard to political speech.
 Another minister said he grows tired of hearing criticism of Trump on character issues. In the Bible and throughout history, “God uses rulers who aren’t themselves godly,” he said, pointing to the Old Testament example of David, a murderer and adulterer whom God later made king and eventually called “a man after my own heart.” [T]he president also sends more subtle messages on the subject of faith vs. science. For example, when Trump refuses to fully adopt the conclusion that climate change is due to man-made influences, he demonstrates an affinity with evangelical Christians who do not blindly accept every scientific theory. . . . They know many of their beliefs contradict scientific facts and theories.

They also know they are considered by many to be superstitious or ignorant for adhering to their beliefs.

Most evangelical believers don’t condemn Trump for the litany of words or deeds that so disturb others, even when they disapprove. . . . . The only miracle they were promised was the application of the grace of Jesus Christ, which, under New Testament doctrine, washed away their sins. They know Donald J. Trump is not worthy of the grace of God, because neither were they — which, to them, is the mystery and beauty of this undeserved gift.

Few references to the New Testament and an affinity for a man who embraces their celebration of ignorance and bigotry.   Not nice or people worthy of respect or deference.