The Global Backlash Against Gay Rights - Homophobia As A Political Tool

Pulse massacre victims remembered - St. Pete Pride Parade

Later today, Donald Trump - who I refer to as Der Trumpenführer - is reportedly scheduled to sign a so-called "religious freedom" executive order.  The order has nothing to do with protecting religious freedom for all Americans but instead would grant special rights and privileges to Christian extremists - the Christofascists, if you will.  If the order is as expected, Christofascists will be granted a license to discriminate at will against LGBT individuals and possibly others who do not conform to Christofascists' religious views.   The driving force behind the effort?  Obviously, the religious based hatred of Christofascists toward anyone and/or anything that challenges their beliefs or underscores the fallibility of the Bible, a work first authored by ignorant, uneducated, unknown Bronze Age authors.  The other is the political opportunism of Republicans and reactionary politicians and autocrats who see fanning homophobia as a means to motivate Christofascist voters in America, and scapegoat minorities  to retain power in Russia, much of Africa and parts of South and Central America.  A lengthy piece in Foreign Affairs looks at  the anti-gay backlash and the poisonous religion  dogmas and political whores/autocrats who care nothing about the lives they harm so long as they remain in power.  Here are highlights:

No revolution worth its salt comes without pushback. The fight for gay rights—widely regarded as “the fastest of all civil rights movements” (over a short period of time, 20 nations have come to recognize same-sex marriage and an additional 15 now allow same-sex civil unions)—is no exception. A shooting rampage last June at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a terrorist who had expressed loathing for the LGBT community, was the deadliest assault ever on the American gay community and attests to the viciousness of this pushback. But that was only one incident. In recent years, there has been a global backlash against gay rights that runs from the United States, through many parts of the global South, to Russia and other parts of the post–Communist world.

The opposition to gay rights comes in two strains and reflects what the Pew Research Center has called “the global divide on homosexuality.” In Western Europe and the Americas, home to the world’s most democratically advanced states and the largest and most sophisticated gay rights movements, the gay backlash takes the form of a counter-revolution designed to intimidate the gay community and roll back gains in gay rights. Across Africa, the Middle East, and much of the post–Communist world, the parts of the globe where democracy, civil society, and human rights are either in short supply or struggling, the gay backlash consists of a “preemptive strike” meant to stop the gay rights movement before it can gain its footing. This involves passing legislation that criminalizes or re-criminalizes homosexuality and that bans the promotion of homosexuality. Both strains, however, serve to fuel anti-gay violence and discrimination, and have exposed the political, rather than cultural nature of the backlash. 

In Europe, there have been massive protests against same-sex marriage, especially in Catholic-majority countries. . . . The protests were for the most part peaceful, but at least one demonstration in May 2013 turned violent, forcing the police to use tear gas and batons to disperse demonstrators.

Across Latin America, the gay backlash has been felt most profoundly in Brazil, where the highest court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2011. Since then, Brazilian legislators have retaliated with a plethora of anti-gay bills that call for redefining the family to exclude homosexual couples, for establishing a national day of “heterosexual pride,” and for banning “Christ-phobia,” or the desecration of Christian symbols. The ban targets the provocative floats mixing religious imagery and sexuality typical of Brazilian gay pride parades. Although these bills don’t really stand much chance of ever becoming law (for one thing, they are of dubious constitutionality), they contribute to the homophobic culture that underpins Brazil’s massive problem with gay killings.

It is in the United States, however, where, along with liberal democracy, the strongest backlash against gay rights can be found. We can count three distinct waves.  The first began immediately after the rise of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s and entailed nothing short of moral panic. Its most dramatic manifestation was country singer Anita Bryant’s “Save the Children” campaign, which succeeded in overturning an anti-discrimination ordinance enacted in Dade County, Florida, by depicting homosexuals as pedophiles. A second wave of backlash crashed in the late 1990s. Between 1998 and 2012, some 30 states enacted constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

A third wave arrived in 2013 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, a 1997 law that barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. A virtual tsunami of legislation intended to undermine LGBT rights has ensued: 254 anti-gay bills have been introduced, 20 of which have become law. In the first half of 2016 alone, 87 bills that could in theory limit LGBT rights were introduced, a steep increase from previous years. The bulk of these laws are justified as measures to protect religious freedom. The passage of bills of this kind has increased by at least 50 percent every year between 2013 and 2015.

Russia’s “gay propaganda law,” enacted in 2013, has also earned its share of infamy. It punishes anyone who promotes homosexuality with jail time and fines. So broadly written is the law that, in principle, it outlaws pride parades; public displays of affection by same-sex couples; gay newspapers and magazines; gay-themed literature, television, and films; and symbols of the LGBT community, such as the rainbow flag. Even an admission of homosexuality, unless the admission is made in order to denounce homosexuality, can be considered illegal.

Darker still is the picture across Central Asia and the Middle East, where the gay backlash has unleashed a nasty wave of anti-gay violence. Since March, more than 100 gay and bisexual men have been reported tortured, held in camps, and killed in the semi-autonomous Russian Republic of Chechnya. For several years now, the world has been horrified by the ghastly antics of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which has been beheading gays and throwing them from rooftops in the territories that it controls. . . .

What is causing the global gay rights backlash is less clear, since societal acceptance of homosexuality in most countries has never been higher. A popular sociological explanation is that increasing visibility makes LGBT people an easier target for anti-gay rights activists. . . . Although this visibility has had a positive effect, leading to greater acceptance of the gay community, the normalization has also galvanized staunch opponents. As Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told The New York Times, “As the majority of society becomes more tolerant of LGBT people, some of those who are opposed to them become more radical.” 

Another popular explanation is the enduring strength of homophobia, which flows from the cultural heterosexism embedded in most religions. Public polls show that societal acceptance of homosexuality is intimately linked to levels of social and economic development and rates of religiosity. The higher the religiosity, the lower the acceptance rate of homosexuality, and vice versa.

Decidedly less noted, and therefore less understood, are the political roots of the gay backlash. By openly embracing anti-gay violence and extremely homophobic legislation, many autocratic regimes across the world are doing what such regimes have done for centuries to groups as varied as Jews, heretics, and various ethnic minorities: scapegoating a socially despised minority as a way to consolidate power, to justify conservative policies, and to distract from other issues.

The governments of Egypt and Iran, for example, employ anti-gay violence in a way that is strikingly similar to the way terrorist organizations, such as ISIS, use violence. Beheading and hanging gays is as much about punishing individuals as it is about intimidating a community or an entire group of people. Russia’s “war on gays” is more a reflection of President Vladimir Putin’s desire to crack down on civil and political liberties than it is an expression of homophobia in Russian culture. Before Putin’s rise, Russia had decriminalized homosexual activity immediately following the fall of Communism.

Although homophobia in Africa is often seen as an “ancient hatred,” its history is surprisingly short. A study by Human Rights Watch revealed that roughly half of the world’s remaining anti-sodomy laws are holdovers from British colonial rule. . . . Leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe discovered that they could score political gains by condemning homosexuals and demonizing homosexuality as a “Western perversion.”

Politicians in the West, but especially in the United States, have also found that exploiting hostility toward homosexuality can score them political points, especially around election time. . . . Karl Rowe, the architect of George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, put same-sex marriage referenda in as many states as possible for the sole purpose of mobilizing so-called value voters. That year, 11 state anti-gay marriage referenda were put to the voters, including in the very important swing state of Ohio.

U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his pledge at the 2016 GOP National Convention to protect LGBT Americans from violence and discrimination, ran on a platform described by gay Republicans as the GOP’s “most anti-LGBT platform” in the party’s 162-year history. . . . While these anti-gay stances no longer have the popular political appeal that they once had, they still serve the useful purpose of keeping social conservatives within the GOP’s fold.

If there is a silver lining to the gay backlash, it is that the backlash is forcing the international community to confront the issue of anti-gay violence and discrimination. . . . faster and more effective change could come if the international community took a stronger stance against those regimes inclined to use gays as a political scapegoat and to employ homophobia as a political tool.

Why Hillary Clinton’s "Trustwortiness" Won’t be Fatal

One new national poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Donald trump by 12% nationally.   That said, I cannot relax for fear that some shoe will drop or that douche bag Julian Assange will try to engineer some "October surprise" to push the election to Russia loving Donald Trump.  Even some conservative reporters seem to think that nonetheless, Trump is toast and that Hillary Clinton's lack of "trustworthiness" will not be a fatal flaw that prevents her from being elected on November 8, 2016.   Likewise, the latest scandal that Republicans are trying to inflate over the Clinton Foundation is a case of smoke but no fire.   Indeed, I suspect many will simply shrug their shoulders and say to themselves that the Republicans are "at it again" in terms of maligning Hillary Clinton. An op-ed in the Washington Post looks at these issue.  Here are highlights:

The Associated Press reported yesterday:

More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president. At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: This is almost certainly not illegal. For that, Clinton should send bushels of roses to former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, his lawyers and their legal defense fund donors, who won a ruling from the Supreme Court that setting up a meeting is not an official act under federal bribery statutes. 

Would she have had these meetings anyway? In some cases, yes. Many of the donors were longtime Clinton friends and donors, international philanthropists and prominent public figures. She also did not see every big donor. But the jumble of public and private interests and the appearance of conflicts of interest were why the whole enterprise was dodgy from the start.

This foundation scandal is in the realm in between “perfectly ethical and legal” behavior and illegal behavior. Call it sleaze or the appearance of corruption. Chalk it up to the Clinton’s habitual blindness to impropriety. 

In a sense, there is nothing new here. We already knew the foundation served two purposes — one altruistic and one entirely selfish. It was a sort of super PAC, a big pot of money to which friends, favor- and publicity-seekers, do-gooders and celebrities all could donate. It, in turn, would generate lucrative speaking engagements for Bill Clinton and later Hillary Clinton, employ cronies like Sid Blumenthal and pay for lavish travel.

Mostly, it would keep Hillary Clinton connected to the rich and famous for what everyone knew would be one last opportunity to win the White House. The latest revelation won’t change many voters’ minds, with the exception of one category of voters. Some Republicans who planned to vote for her may either stay home or vote for third or fourth candidates, especially in states that are not all that competitive. If the disgusted Republican voters stay home, it will actually harm down-ticket Republicans, one more irony in the Clinton wars.

Yes, Clinton will “get away with it,” in the sense that the foundation antics in all likelihood won’t land her in jail or cost her the presidency. But it does further diminish her. It makes the public more cynical and therefore governance that much harder. That means voters are once again the losers.

Finally, it cannot be said enough: Republicans would be winning easily against this deeply flawed opponent with virtually any other candidate but Trump. The sheer stupidity of the Republican primary electorate’s decision and of the reaction of party leadership, which could have blocked or dumped him, is more maddening than even Hillary Clinton’s shadiness.

I definitely agree with the author's lament about the stupidity of Republican primary voters.  That said, it must be underscored that it was the so-called GOP establishment who invited these knuckle draggers into the party and haughtily approved dog whistle messaging that played to their racism, homophobia and general misogyny.  Trump is the natural result of the GOP establishment's self-prostitution to the  swamp fever ridden masses of Christofascists and white supremacists. 

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Was Orlando Straight America’s Stonewall?

Like so many in the LGBT community, I continue to feel the lasting effects of the Orlando massacre that brought out in the open the hatred the LGBT community faces daily.  As my husband has said, that could have been us had we been in Orlando visiting and looking for a fun dance club to visit. And it could have been any gay/gay friendly bar across the country.   While a wake up call to those of us who are LGBT, as noted in a piece in Huffington Post, one can ope that what happened at Pulse on June 12, 2016, will over time prove to be the seminal act of terror/horror that gave straight America the wake up call that it needed to recognize its own complicity in the slaughter.  In my view, there needs to be a much larger discussion of religion's role in fomenting homophobia and the responsibility borne by "good Christians" who fail to forcefully confront - and hopefully over time, silence - the purveyors of anti-LGBT hatred who continue to stand in pulpits across America.  The truth is that Christianity is the wellspring from which homophobia was globalized.  The following are highlights from the HuffPo piece on how Orlando will make a lasting difference:

President Obama made history last Friday by conferring national monument status upon the site of the Stonewall Rebellion. As of yesterday’s dedication, Stonewall became the first national monument commemorating an event in LGBT history. That the president took this step with the nation still reeling from the antigay massacre in Orlando highlights how the two events — Stonewall and Orlando — are intertwined as major inflection points in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality.

The mass shooting at Orlando’s gay nightclub Pulse jolted straight Americans in much the same way that 1969’s Stonewall Rebellion accelerated the LGBT rights movement. Like Stonewall, Orlando catalyzed a collective self-reckoning and resolve for progress. But unlike Stonewall and the other anti-LGBT attacks that followed it in the decades since, Orlando’s aftershocks have rocked all of America - most notably Straight America - and not just LGBTs.

No LGBT American needed yet another reminder of the dangers we face on a daily basis. Orlando was not the first mass murder motivated by antigay hate.  . . . Many LGBT Americans have been the victims of violent crimes motivated by antigay or antitrans animus. In fact, the FBI classifies LGBT Americans as significantly more likely than any other minority - including Latinos/as and African-Americans - to be targeted by hate crimes.

So, while the Orlando mass shooting was horrifying to LGBT people, it did not necessarily surprise us. It was anti-gay violence and hate of the kind to which we have grown accustomed. We have learned to coexist with precarity, and walk the netless high wire that outness often entails.

Orlando’s aftermath, however, has differed materially from that of prior anti-gay mass hate crimes. This time, LGBT Americans were not left to mourn alone. To the contrary, there has been a loud, sustained, and unprecedented outcry by straightpeople condemning what happened in Orlando - and not solely as a mass shooting of unprecedented magnitude, but as an expressly and intolerably antigay mass hate crime.

Some statements rang hollow, like those from politicians and religious leaders known for trafficking in antigay hate in exchange for votes or donations. But a great many came across as sincere and heartfelt.

Some of the boldest displays of solidarity came from corners not usually known to be welcoming, nevermind attuned, to the LGBT community. Sports, for example. 

Teresa Jacobs, the mayor of Orange County, FL, which includes Orlando City, at the Lake Eola vigil that drew 50,000 straight and LGBT mourners lamented that the straight majority’s indifference to homophobia’s ubiquity helped the Orlando Massacre happen. She said: “We failed them when we were insensitive....and we failed them when we knew it was wrong, and we did nothing.” She observed that her “generation and the generations before were indoctrinated with beliefs and messages that fostered and perpetuated hate and prejudice, sometimes intentionally....” She called “on every member of our straight community to open their hearts to acceptance, to embrace diversity, and to cherish our differences.”

Slate’s J. Bryan Lowder reported from Orlando that “[a] number of queer folks [he] spoke with...observed that, in the wake of the tragedy, straight people in their lives seemed to be experiencing a kind of revelation about how precarious and stressful being LGBTQ still is in America.” He quoted one person as saying, “people are getting woke, right?” . . . . Many straight Americans arrived at these distressing realizations in Orlando’s wake, after having been lulled into the false reassurance that last year’s nationwide marriage equality victory represented the full normalization of gay life. 

This heightened interweaving of Straight with LGBT America cultivated the familiarity and empathy demonstrated so vividly, everywhere, over the last two weeks. It rendered the Orlando Massacre a catalytic event in LGBT history - as a straight counterpart to Stonewall. It is a watershed moment that is accelerating progress in the LGBT movement by raising awareness, activating countless new straight allies, and mainstreaming demands for full LGBT equality.

Orlando’s aftermath has recruited legions of new straight allies to the LGBT movement. The LGBT civil rights movement is no longer a movement for and by LGBT Americans. It is an American movement. For and by all of us.

I hope the author's prediction proves right.  Meanwhile, we in the LGBT community need to keep the pressure up on  the many new straight allies and help to focus efforts on destroying the roots of homophobia in America: toxic religion and shameless Republican politicians who use anti-LGBT animus literally daily to promote themselves with the hate-filled Christofascists.  

The GOP Plan to Stoke Anti-Gay Bigotry in 2016

We have seen the GOP use anti-gay bigotry and animus before to turn out its aging, angry base, most notably in 2004 when Karl Rove conspired to use gay marriage bans to whip up the GOP base.  Now, with gay marriage bans struck down nationwide, Michelangelo Signorile predicts that the GOP will again use anti-gay animus to turn out its shrinking  base.  Here are highlights from his column in Huffington Post:

There have been predictions for several years that gay-bashing by GOP presidential candidates would be dead by 2016, some of it wishful thinking by gay advocates. Back in 2012, Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, for example, commenting on the lack of discussion of gay issues in the three debates between President Obama and Mitt Romney, said, "What we're seeing is proof positive that gay issues aren't the wedge they used to be." The public, he said, has "moved on."

Fast forward to 2015: Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Rick Perry have expressed blatant anti-gay positions, from banning gay scout leaders to supporting yet another marriage amendment. Some pundits believe this to be politically dangerous, certainly in a general election, and they're right when it comes to the more overt bigotry.

[N]ew polling underscores that covert messaging -- the dog whistle -- could do the trick for the GOP, just as it has worked for the party on race and gender for decades now. Jeb Bush has defended "religious liberty" -- the new code words for anti-gay positions -- even while saying gay couples deserved "respect" for their relationships. And just last week, Bush said he supported the idea of anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people, though he thought they should be handled "state-by-state"  . . . But in comments that directly followed, Bush said that he believes there should be an exception for people with religious objections to allowing gays and lesbians to marry, . . . In other words, those who would discriminate in the first place should be exempt from laws banning discrimination. This will in fact be the more subtle -- but no less vile and discriminatory -- gay-bashing of the 2016 election.

Right on schedule, GOP legislators in Congress introduced -- and last week publicly promoted -- the deceptively-named First Amendment Defense Act, a bill which appears to be designed to do what the George W. Bush-backed Federal Marriage Amendment was meant to do in 2004 and the year preceding it: Fire up the anti-LGBT evangelical base and create excitement among them for candidates backing it.

The ACLU describes it as "Indiana on steroids," referring to the initial, notorious Indiana Religious Restoration Freedom Act.  

[I]t's true that a large portion of the country supports marriage equality and public opinion has moved quickly in a positive direction on that issue. But as the AP reported, the poll found that when religious objections are thrown into the mix, the public has a jarring reaction, and one that LGBT activists should be taking heed of rather than simply trumpeting new and breathless polls claiming more support:

When the two are in conflict, 56 percent of those questioned said it's more important for the government to protect religious liberties, while 39 percent said it's more important to protect the rights of gays and lesbians.

So, in the AP poll we're actually now seeing nearly 60 percent of Americans agreeing with Jeb Bush's position, and this is up sharply since the Supreme Court ruling, from just over half. There's a sharp difference between Republicans and Democrats, too. Among Republicans, 82 percent said it was more important to protect "religious liberties" than gay rights . . .

While it may be accurate to say that a majority of the American public has "moved on" with regard to marriage equality, that's not true among the base of the GOP. And, more critically, the majority of Americans in general hasn't "moved on" when it comes to "religious liberty" vs. "gay rights," not by a long shot.  

The First Amendment Defense Act . . . . It's unlikely this bill could get 60 votes in the Senate, nor would it likely be signed by President Obama. But the Federal Marriage Amendment had even worse odds. The real goal wasn't to get it passed, but to engage anti-gay voters in the presidential and congressional races.  

That may or may not be enough to garner GOP wins in 2016, but it will surely have the effect of injecting bigotry into the 2016 political discourse -- which is already happening -- and legitimizing religious hatred and discrimination. And that's always a loss for the average gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person, still not legally protected in the majority of America and subjected to derision, discrimination and violence every day.