Limbaugh Demonstrates the Continued Evil of Homophobia

Rush Limbaugh - a thrice divorced study in misogyny - who is a sycophant and cheerleader of Donald Trump (another man who cares little about the sanctity of marriage) recently attacked Pete Buttigieg and maligned his marriage to his husband. This after Trump awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom, thereby severely denigrating the value of the award.  In doing so, Limbaugh - and by extension Trump - clearly was pandering to the anti-gay Christofascists who, along with white supremacists make up the core of Trump's base.  The entire episode underscores the continuing evil of homophobia and hate based religion belief that continues to foster it.  A piece at CNN reminds us of the work that needs to be done to rid the world of the evil of homophobia and those who continue to fan the flames of hate and bigotry.  Here are highlights: 

This week lawmakers in Iowa are debating whether a teacher can say "Pete Buttigieg is gay" in the classroom without first notifying parents.   I wish I were kidding but I am not.

The bill, which was introduced by 13 Republicans and advanced to the full House Education Committee on Monday, would require that lessons touching on the topic of sexual orientation or gender identity first be approved by parents, who would then have the option of sending a note to the principal excusing their children from class. It's the kind of story that supports the uncomfortable truth Rush Limbaugh spoke of during a homophobic rant he delivered on his radio show Wednesday, a week after Melania Trump hung a Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck. Limbaugh mused about the discomfort some voters would experience watching Buttigieg kiss his husband on the debate stage, especially if he's standing next to, as he put it, "Mr. Man, Donald Trump."

As offensive as Limbaugh's remarks about Buttigieg were (and as ironic as his holding up Trump as the epitome of manliness were, considering it was the gay dude who volunteered to fight for this country and the straight one who pleaded "bone spurs"), the reality is homophobia is not theoretical. As the lawmakers in Iowa are showing, it is actively practiced. There will be people who will see Trump's many alleged infidelities (which he denies) as well as his well-documented bullying as quintessential masculine behavior and will dismiss Buttigieg's levelheadedness and affection toward his husband as effeminate. And because homophobia is ultimately an extension of misogyny — that is, to be female is to be less than a man — some of the same prejudices that women seeking the highest office face also plague Buttigieg. That doesn't mean fair-minded people should placate homophobes, misogynists and or racists to win an election — although that does happen. It only means that when a loudmouth like Limbaugh spews his vitriol, people should not be surprised. Remember, he would not be a millionaire if a significant number of people didn't agree with him. So, the question isn't whether or not we should chastise the blowhard messenger, it's what are we doing to challenge the hateful message? Prejudice did not go away.  The people who listen to Limbaugh did not and will not go away. This is not meant to conflate supporting Buttigieg with fair mindedness. Only to remove who he loves off the list of reasons to not vote for him. Limbaugh recently revealed he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. He may survive it. He may not. But one thing for sure is the attitudes of those who delight in his hateful speech will remain.

So be mad at Limbaugh all you want. Just know there is a difference between how things are and how things should be. The bridge between the two is not constructed from denial and despair but rather acknowledgement of the enemy — in this case, it's prejudice — and a determination not to allow it to prevail.

Gay WWII Code Breaker to Be Face of £50 Note

While the Trump/Pence regime and its Christofascist supporters wage war against LGBT Americans, the United Kingdom plans to honor WWII code breaker Alan Turing - the subject of the movie The Imitation Game - by placing his image on the new £50 Note.  Sadly, Turning was not well treated while he was living and posthumous pardons and honors will never make up for the mistreatment he suffered and which drove him to poison himself after he was criminally convicted for being gay.  That said, at least in the UK the government seems to be trying to be learning from past wrongs.  Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Trump and today's GOP are striving to bring back the worse elements of the past, including overt racism and government approved homophobia.  The Advocate looks at the belated honor being bestowed n Turning.  Here are excerpts:

The monumental achievements of British computer mastermind Alan Turing continue to be recognized by his nation, with officials announcing today he will be the face of the £50 banknote.

The Bank of England-backed bill will enter circulation by the end of 2021, reports the BBC. The currency is red and features Turing's face on the right, with his calculations to the left.

Turing helped decode the Germans' Enigma communication device and helped turn the tide of World War II against the Nazis. Turing was also instrumental in the early days of computing and he's often referred to as not only the father of computer science, but artificial intelligence; his "Turing Test" helped determine the intelligence of machines.

Turing's achievements during the war were mostly dismissed when officials discovered he was gay and had an affair with a young man. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 and subjected to chemical castration. Two years later, Turing was dead at 41 after poisoning himself.

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest and appreciation in his work. In 2013, the Queen of England posthumously pardoned Turing for his "crime." A year later, the critically-acclaimed film The Imitation Game chronicled the codebreaker's memorable life.

Far too Americans sadly never learn from the past or the actions of other nations.

Hate is Alive and Well: 28 Year Old Gay Man Gunned Down Amidst Homophobic Slurs

Ronald Peters - murdered last week for being  gay.

Hate crimes are up sharply since Donald Trump's election in 2016 (226% the last time I looked).  Gays are among the favored targets of hate crimes given Trump's fanning of the lie that Christians are being persecuted and that gays are the oppressors.   Straight friends likely cannot comprehend the fear one experiences when one hears homophobic slurs directed at them along with threats of violence. I've had that experience and it is beyond disturbing.  (I also was forced from a law firm for being gay and suffered deliberate anti-gay harassment by Norfolk police officers a decade plus ago).  The murder this week of  old Ronald “Trey” Peters who was merely walking to work from a public transit station in Decatur, Georgia, underscores the reality that gays continue to be targets of homophobic violence and that one's social status does not guarantee safety (something lost on my gay Republican "friends"). The Advocate looks at Peter's senseless murder.  Here are excepts:

Atlanta police are investigating if the death of a 28-year-old who was fatally shot on Tuesday in an Atlanta suburb as attackers hurled homophobic slurs was motivated by him being gay. 

Ronald “Trey” Peters was walking to work from a public transit station in Decatur when two men in a car demanded he give them his backpack. One got out of the car and confronted him.

“When Trey jerked away from him and said, ‘It’s my bag, you’re not getting it,’ the driver got out with a louder voice yelling, ‘Give him the fucking bag, fag,” witness Kevin Pickering told Atlanta TV station WGCL. “The passenger walked back toward the vehicle and the driver got out and started firing.” The young man was reportedly shot twice.

Police have classified the shooting as hate-motivated, and no arrests have been made connected to the incident, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. However, Georgia has no hate-crimes laws that cover violence motivated by sexual orientation. 

“Unfortunately, this deadly attack is not a rare or isolated event. Rather, this is the latest in a long string of hate-motivated incidents,” Allison Padilla-Goodman, the Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.

Peters’s death comes in the wake of at least nine trans women being murdered so far this year alone, and just days after Detroit police announced that a recent triple homicide was motivated by anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to cover the costs of Peters’s memorial.

“[Trey] was taken from this earth in act of violence, but we will not let hate win!” the page reads. “Trey was always giving so much to others, sharing his talents and energy with those around him. He always was willing to help people and had a huge heart. Now it is our turn to give back in honor of him.”

Ultimately, justification for murdering gays traces back to the Bible, a book that is responsible for unspeakable horrors over the centuries - all done in the name of god or justified by the myths handed down from ignorant Bronze Age herders.  Peters' murder is unspeakable, but so too is the fact that so many are clinging to ignorance and and hate based on carefully selected passages from a book with unknown authors who lacked even a shred of scientific and accurate medical knowledge. 

My condolences to Peters' partner, family and friends.  As for his killers and those who fan the flames of homophobia, I hope they burn in Hell.  And yes, that includes the likes of Franklin Graham who is living proof why one might want to leave Christianity. 

National Coming Out Day: Stigma Against Gay People Can Be Deadly

With my husband in the Windsor Suite of the Greenbrier Resort. 

Today is National Coming Out Day which operates on the concept that one of the most basic forms of activism is to "come out" to family, friends and colleagues and live an authentic life as an openly lesbian or gay person. Stated another way, homophobia thrives in an atmosphere of silence and ignorance, and that once people know that they have loved ones who are lesbian or gay, they are far less likely to maintain homophobic or oppressive views.  I came out roughly 17 years ago and lived through periods when Virginia's sodomy law was still binding law and when same sex couples could not marry. (For the record, I am also the survivor of two serious suicide attempts driven by the adverse consequences of "coming out.")

Obviously, ending homophobia runs directly counter to the efforts of the Trump/Pence regime and the Republican Party to continue to demonize gays and lesbians and to role back LGBT rights.  These efforts are aimed in part to endear the GOP and Trump/Pence to Christofascists who continue to use the bogeyman of LGBT rights as their number one fundraising scare tactic.   Nowhere in the calculus of this vicious agenda is the very real harm done to real people.  A piece in the New York Times by a licensed physician looks at the documented harm such homophobic efforts cause.  I maintain that these "godly Christian" folk care little about "religious freedom" and instead are focused on inflicting cruelty on those who are different, even if such cruelty drives individuals to suicide.  Here are article highlights which look at the harm being done to individuals and often their families:

I’ve never been sure what to expect when meeting someone who’s just tried to take his own life. But I’ve learned to stop expecting anything.

Yesterday, my patient, a 20-something graduate student, swallowed a jumble of unmarked pills, hoping to die, after his father told him never to come home again. Today, he greeted me with a soft smile, his delirium starting to clear, his heart beating normally again.

“Whoops,” he said.   He’d been a happy kid who aimed to please. He once felt so bad for lying about having done his homework before playing video games, he told me, that he’d grounded himself. Sociable but square, he didn’t drink until he was 21, even though he’d gone to a college with a reputation for partying. Deeply religious, he was gay but desperately wanted not to be.

Now his father’s disavowal pushed him over the edge, capping a string of stigmatizing experiences at home, at school and at church. He’d had enough.

For decades, we’ve known that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals experience a range of social, economic and health disparities — often the result of a culture and of laws and policies that treat them as lesser human beings. They’re more likely to struggle with poverty and social isolation. . . . . L.G.B.T. youth are three times as likely to contemplate suicide, and nearly five times as likely to attempt suicide.

Some of these disparities have interpersonal roots: social exclusion, harassment, internalized homophobia. But often they stem from an explicit denial of rights: same-sex marriage bans, employment discrimination, denial of federal benefits.

Sexual minorities living in communities with high levels of prejudice die more than a decade earlier than those in less prejudiced communities.

But civil rights advances and growing public acceptance of L.G.B.T. individuals in recent years are among the more transformative social changes in modern American history. And evidence increasingly suggests this shift has measurably improved health care access and health outcomes for L.G.B.T. populations.

The halting, patchwork nature of L.G.B.T. rights expansions across the country has allowed researchers to study the effects on health and well-being by comparing states that expanded rights to those that failed to introduce protections, or actively curtailed them.

After Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, mental health visits dropped significantly for gay men across the state. Other states that followed suit saw a 7 percent reduction in suicide attempts among L.G.B.T. adolescents. Nationwide, legalization of same-sex marriage is linked to increases in the likelihood that gay men have health insurance and a regular doctor to see.

By contrast, in states that passed same-sex marriage bans in 2004 and 2006, L.G.B.T. individuals experienced a marked rise in mental health problems, including anxiety, alcohol use and mood disorders. (No such increase was found in neighboring states that did not pass bans.)

But it’s more than just marriage. L.G.B.T. individuals who live in states where it’s legal for businesses to deny people service based on their sexual orientation have a higher risk for mental health problems. One study found a 46 percent increase in the proportion of sexual minorities reporting depression, anxiety and other emotional problems in states that passed denial-of-service laws. Again, no increase was observed in states without these laws.

But there’s reason to believe progress in L.G.B.T. health may be imperiled by a political and social environment that is growing less friendly toward sexual minorities. More states are trying to pass “religious liberty” laws that allow for discrimination based on gender and sexual identity. Several federal health surveys will no longer include questions about sexual orientation, making it more difficult for researchers to study disparities. And the Trump administration recently established a new division in the Department of Health and Human Services to defend health professionals who refuse to provide care to people or in situations that conflict with their personal beliefs, which could include the right to treat L.G.B.T. individuals. (L.G.B.T. patients already face discrimination at concerning rates.

I think of my young patient in the hospital bed who had attempted to kill himself. I remember the pain that remained even as the toxins he ingested left his body. And I worry that a new wave of anti-L.G.B.T. rhetoric and policy will mean that he — and people who love like him — will end up feeling more stigmatized, in poorer health, or no longer with us at all.

Trump's Appeal to His Base: I Share Yor Hate

While it is not an excuse for failing to meet the expectations of the Founding Fathers that citizens be well informed and educate themselves on issues of the day, many Americans are finding themselves exhausted from the daily barrage of lies, disinformation and calls to hatred emanating from the Trump White House and other minions of the Trump/Pence regime. Yes, it is exhausting even for those of us who are political junkies, but paying attention to and resisting against the false propaganda issuing from Trump, his amoral Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Fox News is a civic duty. Looking away, burying one's head in "personal matters," stating that one "doesn't like politics," or engaging in the pretense that one is "too busy," are not portraits in courage or morality, but rather is akin to what the "Good Germans" did during Hitler's rise. A column in the New York Times argues that if one needs to find a means to energize their resistance to the moral abomination that is the Trump/Pence regime. then look at Trump's underlying message to his base.  It is all abut hate and animus towards those who are not far right white evangelicals or the obscenely wealthy. Trump's siren call to his base is hatred towards non-whites, gays, non-Christians, and those unwilling to reestablish unfettered white privilege. Grotesquely, white evangelicals have bought into this message without reservation.  Here are column excerpts:

In Trump’s America people are understandably experiencing news fatigue. There are torrents of it on multiple streams. There is outrage after outrage. It is often overwhelming.

That’s the plan, I suspect. Trump is operating on the Doctrine of Inundation. He floods the airwaves until you simply give up because you feel like you’re drowning.  And unfortunately, it’s working. A Pew Research Center report released Tuesday found that nearly seven in 10 Americans “feel worn out by the amount of news there is these days.”

Fighting this fatigue is the real test of a person’s resolve, including mine.

I remember the episode that first revealed to me the darkness at Trump’s core, and I am renewed.

On an April night nearly 30 years ago, a young investment banker was beaten and raped when she went for a jog in Central Park. The attack left her in a coma. She happened to be white. Five teenagers arrested for the crime — four black and one of Hispanic descent — went to trial. As this newspaper reported at the time, they were “in what the police said was part of a marauding spree by as many as 30 youths in the northern end of the park” that night.

After being questioned for hours, the defendants gave false confessions that conflicted with one another, and those confessions were captured on video. As The New York Times pointed out in 2002: “The defendants in the jogger case were put on camera after they had been in custody, in some cases, for as long as 28 hours.”

As one of the five wrote in 2016 in The Washington Post: “When we were arrested, the police deprived us of food, drink or sleep for more than 24 hours. Under duress, we falsely confessed.”

A few days after the attack, long before the teenagers would go on trial, Donald Trump bought full-page ads in New York newspapers — you may think of this as a precursor to his present-day tweets to a mass audience — under a giant, all-caps headline that read: “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”

The boys would be convicted even though the physical evidence in the case was inconclusive. When one of the teenagers was led away in handcuffs, he yelled at the prosecutor: “You’re going to pay for this. Jesus is going to get you. You made this … up.”

After serving up to 13 years in prison, the boys were proven right: Another man confessed to the crime and his DNA matched that at the scene of the crime.  The boys, then men, had their convictions overturned, were freed, and eventually reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the city over their wrongful convictions.

How did Trump respond after having called for them to be put to death? In true Trump fashion, he refused to apologize or show any contrition whatsoever.

[I]t is the language in the body of Trump’s 1989 death penalty ad that sticks with me. Trump wrote:

“Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.”

That to me is the thing with this man: He wants to hate. When Trump feels what he believes is a righteous indignation, his default position is hatred. Anyone who draws his ire, anyone whom he feels attacked by or offended by, anyone who has the nerve to stand up for himself or herself and tell him he’s wrong, he wants to hate, and does so.

This hateful spirit envelops him, consumes him and animates him.

He hates women who dare to stand up to him and push back against him, so he attacks them, not just on the issues but on the validity of their very womanhood.

He hates black people who dare to stand up — or kneel — for their dignity and against oppressive authority, so he attacks protesting professional athletes, Black Lives Matter and President Barack Obama himself as dangerous and divisive, unpatriotic and un-American.

He hates immigrants so he has set a tone of intolerance, boasted of building his wall (that Mexico will never pay for), swollen the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and attacks some as criminals and animals.

He always disguises his hatred, often as a veneration and defense of his base, the flag, law enforcement or the military. He hijacks their valor to advance his personal hatred.

So I remember that. I center that. I hear “I want to hate” every time I hear him speak. And I draw strength from the fact that I’m not fighting for or against a political party; I’m fighting hatred itself, as personified by the man who occupies the presidency. That is my spine stiffener.

Pause for a moment and think about Trump's policy of brutality and force separation of immigrant families, his demagoguery against black NFL players, his attempts to ban Muslim immigrants, and his regimes rigorous attacks on LGBT civil rights protections and all are united by a single motivation: hatred of others who are different due to skin color, language spoke, religious faith or sexual orientation. Hatred is what unifies Trump with his base and, if one opposes hatred and bigotry, then one must oppose the Trump/Pence regime and its enablers and sycophants within the GOP.  If one is a moral and decent person, one must resist. 

Utah Senate Votes 24 to 1 to Repeal Its "No Promo Homo" Law

While most Republican controlled state legislatures are pushing to enact anti-gay legislation, Utah may become an exception.   Back in the midst of the AIDS crisis during the 1980's, many conservative states - and even some liberal states such as California - passed anti-gay laws that sought to limit if not outright ban any positive public school support for LGBT students. California struck down its anti-gay law in 20013, Now, pending the signature of Utah's governor, Utah is set to join the states that have eliminated laws that ban support for LGBT students.  Sadly at least 19 other states continue to have such laws.  The result is more bullying of LGBT students and all of the negatives that come from such bigotry.  Indeed, a spike in student suicides seems to have been the catalyst for action by the Utah legislature despite the general virulent homophobia of the Mormon Church.  (The Salt Lake Tribune has details here) Here are highlights from Salon:

Utah could become the first Republican-dominated state to strike down an anti-LGBT law that prevents teachers from addressing topics related to homosexuality in schools. Last Wednesday the state’s Senate voted 24 to 1 to repeal its “no promo homo” legislation, following a similar 68-to-1 vote in the House of Representatives. Senate Bill 196, the proposal to repeal the old law, now sits on Gov. Gary Herbert’s desk. Despite his opposition to marriage equality and belief that homosexuality is a choice, Herbert is widely expected to sign the bill.

This is the second time in three years that advocates have passed legislation in support of the LGBT community in one of the country’s most conservative states. Both houses of the Utah legislature are controlled by the GOP and more than 85 percent of representatives are Mormon, a religion with a leadership that has claimed homosexuality is a “grievous sin.”

But two years ago conservatives worked with LGBT leaders on the state’s first milestone toward equality: Utah became the only legislature with a Republican majority to pass nondiscrimination protections for the LGBT community. That law, enacted in 2015, prevents people from being fired or evicted because of their gender identity or sexual orientation (although a healthy religious exemption remains for faith-based groups). The nondiscrimination effort was backed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and represents the first time that religious group has publicly expressed support for pro-LGBT legislation.

The challenge to the state’s “no promo homo” laws began last year when Equality Utah and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of three students who allege that the legislation prevented them from being treated equally in schools. One student, referred to as “John” in the suit, claimed in court briefings that a classmate “held [his] hand to a hot metal slide” and burned it. “He screamed for help and the boy finally let him go,” according to the documents. The suit asserted that because he was gender nonconforming, his teacher denied him first aid. The teacher allegedly felt that helping this injured student would send a message it was OK to be like him.  John was 5 years old.

Rather than making the school district safer for other students like John, the lawsuit alleges, the district doubled down on discriminating against gender nonconforming students. The boy wanted to go to school dressed as Cinderella for Halloween, and after John’s parents pulled him out of his classes, administrators adopted a regulation saying that no students would be allowed to dress up as someone of the opposite gender for the holiday. If they did, they would face suspension.

Williams noted that these sorts of incidents happen all the time in Utah. “Another one of our plaintiffs was simply holding hands with her girlfriend and was called into detention for public displays of affection, while her straight counterparts hold hands in the hallways all the time,” he said. “Time and again, we’re seeing ways in which queer-identified students are singled out and treated differently.”

“No promo homo” legislation was enacted in the early 1990s in the wake of the AIDS crisis. . . . conservative parts of the country either didn’t teach about homosexuality at all or students would only “learn bad things about it.”

That mindset led to the passage of extremely anti-LGBT legislation in states like Arizona, Louisiana and Mississippi, where “no promo homo” laws remain on the books. For example,  Alabama’s state code declares that “classes must emphasize, in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.” . . . 20 states have anti-LGBT language in their curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12. 

“More than 25 million children — nearly half of all school-aged children in the United States — are attending public schools in these 20 states,” Rosky wrote in the appropriately titled “Anti-Gay Curriculum Laws.” “In half of these states, teachers are affirmatively required to teach anti-gay curricula in all public schools. In the other half, teachers may choose between offering students an anti-gay curriculum or providing no health, sex, or HIV education at all.”

“These laws say to students that they are not accepted and that they are invisible.”  This is a concern for people in a state like Utah, where Rosky claimed that the youth suicide rate “has quadrupled” over the past 10 years. Mama Dragons, a support group for LGBT youth, estimated that 32 young people took their lives from November 2015 to January 2016. While no one would claim that the “no promo laws” are solely to blame for this, Rosky said eliminating the legislation would mean there would “no longer be obstacles” to teachers supporting vulnerable LGBT students — empowering them to prevent harassment and treat all students equally, no matter their orientation.

Should Utah successfully repeal its “no promo homo” law, though, with the governor’s approval, it would be the second state to do so. Blue state California, which had passed an anti-LGBT curriculum bill in 1988, struck down its legislation in 2003.  No other states have announced a repeal effort.

How Trump is Allowing Putin to Export Anti-LGBT Hatred

If one knows Russian history, then one knows that, excluding portions of the Bolshevik and communist period, for centuries reactionary and dictatorial Russian autocrats have always relied upon the Russian Orthodox Church to wage war against independent thought and opposition to the governing regime.  With the fall of communism, Vladimir Putin has revived the unholy alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and his regime where the Church once again is allied with a regime that is anathema to the Gospel message and the rights of average Russians.  One of the tools Putin has employed to strengthen this alliance is legalizing the Russian Orthodox Church's extreme homophobia and scapegoating LGBT Russians.  Here in America, Der Trumpenführer is seeking to solidify a similar alliance of reactionary fundamentalist and evangelical Christians easily motivated by hatred of "non-belivers," those of other faiths, and LGBT citizens. to shore up and maintain support for his regime.  In the process, we now see similar moves to those made by Putin directed towards LGBT Americans and the question becomes one of how bad will things get. "Friends" who voted for Trump continue to close their eyes and ears to what they have unleashed on their LGBT friends and neighbors.  A piece in Queerty looks at the manner in which Russian is now freely exporting anti-LGBT hatred to America and the West (although not noted in the piece, the Russian Orthodox Church also has a long history of supporting Great Russian discrimination against non-whites). Here are excerpts:

We’ve already discussed why Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin is terrible for us. But in light of the expanding firestorm over Russia’s outsized influence in the Trump administration, the question is, just how terrible. As it turns out, it could be worse than we imagined.

Trump’s campaign was bizarrely and distressingly cozy with anti-democratic Russia. The candidate himself openly admired Putin and even egged Russia on its hacking of the Democratic National Committee. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was trying to put a finger on the scale in the election, an unprecedented intrusion into American democracy.

That much everyone knows. But less known is the extent to which Russia has emerged as a ringleader of the American religious right. In fact, according to one new study, Russia is the leader of the global Christian right. Which in part explains why the Trump administration remains enamored of a nation with a smaller economy than the state of California.

To say that this is a disastrous development is an understatement. Russia’s homophobia runs deep and virulent. Here’s a sampling of the type of harassment and violence that are now commonplace in the country, where three-quarter of its citizens believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.
·        Routinely allows thugs to attack gay activists without fear of prosecution·        Arrest gay activists for standing up for their rights·        Bans any pro-gay materials as “propaganda”·        Forbids same-sex couples from adopting·        Blocked the country’s most popular LGBTQ site·        Banned transgender people from getting drivers licenses

Much of this has been done in concert with the Russian Orthodox Church, which has emerged as an ally of Putin and which now provides a template for the type of Church-State relationship the religious right would like to see in America.

The American religious right’s admiration for Putin and Russia soared during the Obama administration. Such high-profile figures as Franklin Graham, Bryan Fischer, and Brian Brown have proclaimed Russia to be on the right track when it comes to gay issues. But for a long time, the assumption was that the religious right was simply exporting its particular brand of homophobia to a friendly venue.

As it turns out, according to the report from People for the American Way, we may actually be a net importer of Russia hatred. At the heart of this disturbing trend is Brian Brown. Brown headed the rapidly dying National Organization for Marriage but he has managed to fail upwards as head of the International Organization for the Family, formerly known as the World Congress of Families. In this role, Brown has been hitting the road, landing in Russia just last week to promote closer relations between the U.S. and Putin.

What has changed over the years is that, by increasing repression (and violence), Russia has been able to position itself as the promised land for the homophobic right in the U.S. and claim the moral (if that’s the word) high ground.

Exactly how deep the relationships run is anyone’s guess. Putin has deep pockets and grand ideas, and he’ll be happy to collaborate with anyone who espouses his nationalist viewpoints. But the salient point is that Russia has gone from being the recipient of homophobic outreach to the standard against which the far right judges the U.S. At a minimum, it is setting the tone for our bitterest enemies.

Just one glance at the hell Russia has made for the lives of its LGBTQ citizens is chilling. What’s even more chilling is the growing power of the eager audience that would like to see that hell replicated in the U.S.

Is Trumpism A Recast Version of the Culture Wars?

In some respects, the ascendancy of Donald Trump represents what will hopefully be a short-lived last gasp of white, heterosexual conservative Christians trying to impose their fantasy view of what America once was onto the majority of the population that either does not conform to this whites only world view or who recognize that the "good old days" the Christofascists long for were anything but good for many, many people.  Indeed, Trump and his supporters are fighting against modernity itself be it scientific knowledge that challenges myth based religious belief or changing economic circumstances that challenge the 1950's white nuclear family model that Trumpist desperate cling to. An undercurrent of this movement is cruelty towards others who adre diiferent in any way, be it in terms of race, religious belief, national origin, and sexual orientation.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the backward looking theme of Trump and his supporters.  Here are excerpts:

The chaos of Donald Trump’s opening weeks should not come as a total shock. The first president with no experience in government, surrounded by a chief of staff, a chief strategist, and a son-in-law who also lack any government experience and who seem to be competing ruthlessly with each other for power, is not a formula for quick success. The administration’s incompetence manifested itself most visibly in the rapid execution of a cruel, overbearing immigration restriction that provoked protests nationwide and even grumbling from some Republicans in Congress.

At another level, though, the travel ban might be seen, from the ideological perspective of the people who crafted it, not necessarily as a failure at all. Despite its ostensibly narrow scope, the operation was extraordinarily ambitious, designed to send a message to the world about who Americans are, who can become American, and, most especially, who cannot. The mayhem, inconvenience, and heartbreak it caused were in fact its very intent.

There are three different aspects of the Trump presidency at play. One is simply characterological: The president’s distinct troubled-adolescent behavior pattern, which, via regular bouts of insult-spewing, braggadocio, ignorance, extravagant promises, wild lies, and absolute intolerance of criticism, frequently throws the policymaking process into disarray.

The second component, and the largest, is standard Republican policy, developed in Congress and conservative think tanks for decades, which Trump has begun to implement fairly smoothly. 

The final and most mysterious element — the one that created the travel ban — is Trumpism. This is the ethno-nationalistic aspect of the president’s governing ideology, which springs both from Trump’s own impulses and from ideas nurtured by a handful of his closest aides, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and several staffers brought over from the alt-right publication Breitbart. Trumpism combines an instinctive belief in zero-sum relations between countries with a narrow and retrograde definition of American identity. 

The executive order halting admission of refugees and cracking down on immigration from seven Muslim-­majority countries was a narrower codification of the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” that Trump had promised during the campaign. The implementation was a fiasco. . . . Families were separated, children and elderly people terrified. Parents of a 4-month-old with a serious heart condition had to cancel their baby’s planned heart surgery in Oregon. On and on the tragedies mounted. Beyond the humanitarian costs, the toll on business and intellectual life was immediate. 

A pillar of Trumpism is the refusal to distinguish between peaceful and violent Muslims. Trump has said “Islam hates us,” and when asked if he distinguishes between radical Islam and the religion as a whole, he brushed off the distinction: “It’s very hard to separate, because you don’t know who is who.” Bannon has repeatedly emphasized his belief that Islam as a whole poses an existential threat to Christianity. (“Islam is not a religion of peace,” Bannon has said. “Islam is a religion of submission.”) Trump has falsely implicated the entire Muslim-American community in the terrorist attacks of domestic radicals in San Bernardino and Orlando.  . . . . Punishing innocent Muslims for the threat posed by terrorists is not a side effect of their policy but an expression of its tenets.

The collateral damage to academia and tech firms from the ban may, too, have been part of the point. There is a plausible argument that low-skilled immigrants depress wages for workers in blue-­collar fields and that their numbers should thus be reduced. But leaked memos suggest the administration is designing crackdowns on highly skilled immigrants, despite mounds of evidence showing that such immigrants increase incomes for Americans of modest means. 

Trumpism is a culture war sold through chimerical economic and security gains. Michael Anton, a national-­security staffer in the administration and a key Trumpist intellectual, wrote an anonymous essay during the campaign predicting that Trump’s election would stanch what Anton called “the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty.” America has long been defined — unlike France or Germany or Japan or Russia — as a country lacking a singular race. The ambition of Trumpism seems to be to create a blood-and-soil American nationalism, an identity from which Asian, Muslim, and Latin American immigrants are excluded permanently.

Trumpism’s greatest vulnerability lies not in the buried qualms of his Republican partners. It is in the American public. January was a month of citizen protest unlike anything this country has witnessed in decades. . . . . it took Trump to inspire Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others to join together in demonstrations of patriotic, ecumenical solidarity. At the moment, they are the strongest defense of the American idea against an ideology determined to thwart it.

The Fruits of Religion: Mother Stabs Son to Death for Being Gay

Some people wonder why I find myself increasingly hostile towards religion, especially fundamentalist Christianity.  The  recent murder of a 17 year old teen boy in Brazil (pictured above) demonstrates the manner in which Christianity all too often justifies hatred and violence against others. Yes, Islam carries a similar hatred of gays as well.  The irony, of course, is that both Islam and Christianity derive their anti-gay animus from the Jewish Old Testament. As the book "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies,", the end product of over ten years of historical research, documents, the harsh condemnation of homosexuality in Western society is a relatively recent phenomenon, unique among world societies throughout history, and that the spread on anti-gay animus and homophobia around the globe was the result of the efforts of Christian missionaries.   Stated another way, take away religious doctrine and homophobia and anti-gay hatred go away.   Yes, there are some "good Christians," but most do far too little to oppose their anti-gay co-religionists.  A piece in LGBTQ Nation looks at the horrific murder of Itaberli Lozano in two pieces, one here and the other here.  Here are excerpts:

A 32-year-old supermarket manager from a town near Sao Paolo, Brazil, confessed to stabbing her 17-year-old gay son Itaberli Lozano to death last week.  The body was found a week after the murder, burned and buried in a cane field.

The mother, Tatiana Lozano Pereira, 32, claims that Lozano used drugs and brought men home. The teen’s uncle Dario Rosa denies that, saying that Lozano was hard-working and educated, according to G1. Rosa believes that Lozano Pereira killed her son because he was gay and says that this is the first time she accused her son of drug use.

Her story changed when it was found that in December Lozano reported his mother to local authorities. He also posted a message on Facebook on December 26th accusing his mother of hiring several boys to beat him.

Last Friday, two teens were arrested in connection with the Lozano’s murder. They confessed that they were hired to attack Lozano, but they claim that it was the mother who stabbed her son to death in the end. She says she hired them to give her son “a lesson” and that when she saw that her son was dying, she stabbed him because she thought it was better to end his life, according to Blasting News.

Prosecutor Wanderley Baptista of Trindade Junior says the crime was committed because of homophobia. He cites a December 27th Facebook post from Itaberli where the teen says he was beaten by his mother for being gay and kicked out of her home. Itaberli’s uncle also says that the boy was murdered for his sexuality.

Carolina Aram, a lawyer with Brazilian Bar Association’s Commission on Sexual Diversity, said she has evidence that homophobia was the motivation behind the crime that she obtained from neighbors, and that Itaberli had already been the victim of a homophobic hate crime, according to G1. She will deliver the evidence to the judge.

Take a good look at Itaberli's face.  He died because of religious based hate.  While most parents fundamentalist Christians do not murder their children, let's not forget that 40% of homeless teens are LGBT, many thrown out of their homes by their "godly" parents. Fundamentalist religion, be it Christian or Muslim, is a surge on mankind that needs to be eradicated from the face of the Earth.

Why white Christian America Voted for Trump

In contrast to the New York Times apology piece/op-ed yesterday I noted in a prior post today, the Washington Post has a piece that looks at what really drove white Christians to vote for Trump, especially in rural America.  The answer is not pretty and largely boils down to exactly what the Times op-ed tried to argue was not the case.  Hate, bigotry, a sense of rage at lost white privilege and extremist religious beliefs were the main motivators and it is clear that to these folks "Make America Great Again" translated to "Make America White and Christian Again."  And be assured that LGBT individuals have no place in their white Christian America.  The only good new is that towns like the one in the article are dying precisely because of the white "godly: Christians who have made such locales toxic to progressive and forward looking businesses that have not desire to turn back time to the 1950's. Here are some article highlights:

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — From a perch on Main Street, the home town of actor Andy Griffith looks this day like it was plucked right out of the television show that bears his name. And it was.

And yet even as this city of about 10,000 nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains fills its coffers by selling nostalgia, many of its residents would agree with the now-popular saying “We’re not in Mayberry anymore.”

If only the real Mount Airy, which has experienced decades of economic and social decline, were like the Mayberry facade, muses Mayor David Rowe. If only his city and the rest of America could return to the 1950s again.

“Now it’s about secular progressivism, not the values you get out of this book,” such as honesty and hard work, said Rowe, 72, jabbing his finger at the leather Bible on his office desk.

But as Donald Trump prepares to move into the White House, Rowe and many of his constituents are hoping for a return to the past.

Visitors to Surry County spent $116.62 million in 2015, compared with $66 million 12 years ago, according to Jessica Icenhour Roberts, who heads tourism partnerships for the county, whose largest city is Mount Airy.  But Mount Airy cannot live on tourism alone, the mayor said.

“We try to live the good old days, but it’s hard,” Rowe said. Just down the street from a bronze statue of Griffith and a museum dedicated to his memory, out of sight of the boutiques selling Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade artwork, sit many dilapidated textile mills that have closed in the past decade. From early 2000 to about 2010, about 9,000 private-sector jobs were lost when factories that made clothes went overseas.

Despite the steady stream of tourists, business owners are still struggling to create new jobs that will attract a younger generation, said Lizzie Morrison, 30, who runs an art studio and is the Main Street coordinator with Mount Airy Downtown.

Morrison said the city’s younger residents tend to be socially liberal, while most in the older generations look to the past. That tension makes it harder for someone like her to push for new ideas, she said.

A group of developers has been working on a project to redevelop an old mill, Morrison said, but the proposal has moved slowly because of resistance from residents. 

Many Mount Airy residents applauded the president-elect’s promise to revoke the Johnson Amendment, which effectively bars pastors from endorsing a candidate from the pulpit, Rowe said. They were heartened by his suggestion that Christians will be able to once again see “Merry Christmas” signs in department stores.

But the mayor acknowledges that the 1950s and ’60s were not idyllic for all Americans. He wouldn’t, for example, want to go back to the days when there were separate water fountains at the local Sears for whites and blacks. At the same time, he said, African Americans often bring hardship on themselves. . . . He noted that the Hispanics he has hired to work at his construction company are hard workers. He doesn’t encounter people who aren’t white in social settings much because folks tend to self-segregate, he said. Mount Airy is 84 percent white, 8.2 percent black and 6.7 percent Hispanic, according to 2010 census data.

Not everyone is nostalgic for the 1950s.  Ron Jessup, 68, who grew up in Mount Airy during that era, found the place generally friendly then, he said — as long as he and other blacks obeyed the racist laws and social mores of the time.

If African Americans went to the theater, they sat upstairs, he said. If they went to the restaurants, they avoided the counter. “We understood what was considered our place,” said Jessup, who is retired from his job as a high school principal in nearby Winston-Salem. Even now, all five Surry County commissioners are white.

As for Trump, Jessup believes his “Make America Great Again” slogan was code for “take America back again,” and a reaction to President Obama’s election.

“Sometimes we use Christianity when it’s convenient for what we want,” Jessup said. “You can’t allow someone to have racist remarks and then go to church and talk about Jesus as the center of your life.”

When she travels with her pastor husband, Thresa Tucker hands out an evangelistic tract that uses “The Andy Griffith Show” as an entry point for talking about Jesus. . . . . Tucker and her husband, David, said they voted for Trump because they want a more limited federal government. They mentioned social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and school prayer.

The Tuckers were also dismayed when their health insurance bill skyrocketed. Before Obamacare, they had no health insurance and paid out of pocket. Their monthly bill will rise from $115 a month now to $435 next year, Thresa Tucker said.

Many of those who have lost jobs seek help at White Plains Baptist Church, where her husband is preacher. But not all who seek help are worthy of it, she said. The church has to be a good steward of its money, so there are criteria for assistance, and she asks whether people attend church regularly. African Americans who have voiced concerns over what Trump will do for the poor would have a different perspective if they tried harder to help themselves, she said.

People just aren’t committed to church, anymore, he said. The church he attends used to attract up to 600 people on a Sunday in the 1960s, but is lucky to get a third of that now. Young people leave for college and come back with more progressive, secular values, he said.

If Trump does manage to “make America great again,” Rowe said it will involve preventing the government from encroaching on religion.  Christianity has come under attack in America, he said. “It’s subtle, not in your face, but that’s the way Satan works,” he said.

 I suspect that Mount Airy will continue on the road to further economic decline and obscurity. Sadly, its residents will not look in the mirror and realize that they, not modernity or secularism is the root of their problems.