Why Americans’ Views Flipped on Gay Rights

June is Pride month - although Der Trumpenführer has banned embassies from flying the rainbow flag and ended important HIV research in deference to his knuckle dragging Christofascist base - and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City which many view as the beginning of the struggle for gay rights in America.  Despite the efforts of the Trump/Pence regime and its Christofascist supporters to role back LGBT rights and re-stigmatize, the majority of Americans are not buying into the effort, especially the younger generations who are walking away form religion in no small part because the anti-gay agenda and daily hypocrisy of evangelical Christians and right wing Catholics.  A lengthy piece in the Washington Post looks at the rapid change in attitudes towards LGBT individuals and suggests that the fact that gays cross every demographic and region of the country and that sexual orientation is not immediately discernible may have been a driving factor in the speed of change.  The piece also points out the glaring lack of non-discrimination protections in many states (if Democrats win control of the Virginia General Assembly in November, this may finally change in Virginia) and that "conservative" - think hate-filled - religion remains at toxic evil - which hopefully will ease as older generations literally die off.  Here are article highlights:

Steve and Teri Augustine met, fell in love and got married in a conservative evangelical Christian community. They grew up believing homosexuality was a sin, and that the “gay agenda” was an attack on their values.

Then, six years ago, their son Peter — their youngest child who loved theater and his church youth group — returned home to Ellicott City, Md., from his freshman year of college and came out to his family as gay.

Teri asked her son not to tell anyone else, and drove herself to a mall parking lot to cry. Steve questioned his son’s faith, reciting Bible passages from Corinthians. The Augustines decided to put their son through a year of conversion therapy, determined to “set him straight.”

But after the therapy failed, something changed. Steve and Teri Augustine started meeting Peter’s friends and inviting other gay Christians to dinner. Two summers after Peter came out, the family stood on the sidelines of the Capital Pride parade wearing rainbow beads and shirts with the words “I’m sorry.” Teri now hosts a support group for Christian moms of LGBTQ children.

The transformation in the Augustine family parallels a shift in public opinion that social scientists say is unlike any other of our time.

As recently as 2004, polls showed that the majority of Americans — 60 percent — opposed same-sex marriage, while only 31 percent were in favor, according to the Pew Research Center. Today, those numbers are reversed : 61 percent support same-sex marriage, while 31 percent oppose it.

“You can’t find another issue where attitudes have shifted so rapidly,” said Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas who has studied public opinion of LGBT rights over the years.

What’s perhaps most surprising is that support for same-sex marriage has increased among nearly all demographic groups, across different generations, partisan lines and religious faiths. Even among the most resistant religious group, white evangelical Protestants like the Augustine family, support for same-sex marriage has grown from 11 percent in 2004 to 29 percent in 2019, according to Pew.

But while it’s clear that the gay rights movement managed to change people’s minds faster than any other civil rights movement in memory, it’s less clear why. How, in 15 years, did Americans’ views flip on such a charged social issue? And why haven’t other groups that have also publicly fought discrimination managed to change public opinion as quickly? The answer lies in human behavior and demographic realities, as well as a winning strategy by gay rights activists that capitalized on both.

In a study published earlier this year, Mahzarin Banaji, a psychology professor at Harvard University, investigated patterns of long-term changes in attitudes toward six social groups — the elderly, the disabled, the overweight, black people, people with darker skin tones and gay people — over a decade. . . . Between 2007 and 2016, Banaji found that explicit attitudes toward all groups became less biased. But implicit attitudes toward some groups stayed the same — including bias toward people with disabilities and the elderly. Implicit bias against people who are overweight actually became worse. Respondents became less biased in their attitudes toward race and skin tone.

But of all of the groups, implicit attitudes toward sexuality changed, by far, the fastest. . . . This relatively recent acceleration came after decades of struggle.

In 1978, almost a decade after Stonewall, gay rights activist Harvey Milk gave an impassioned plea: “Every gay person must come out.” In the decades that followed, more and more Americans started coming out to their loved ones, some galvanized by the pain of the AIDS epidemic.

Then, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the growing visibility of gay people in popular culture began to trigger a major shift in attitudes, social scientists said. By then, comedian Ellen DeGeneres had come out as gay, the NBC sitcom “Will & Grace” had taken off and Americans started seeing more examples of gay people in popular culture. Most of these characters and the most visible leaders at the helm of the movement were white people with the power and privilege to help LGBT rights reach the mainstream.

But there was something different about the gay and lesbian community, compared with other minority groups. They were in every socioeconomic and racial group, every generation, in small towns and big cities. Unlike other demographics, “sexuality is a dimension that is everywhere,” Banaji said. “It is not segregated.”

The more connections Americans made with gay or lesbian people, the more positive their attitudes toward them became — a trend social scientists call “the contact hypothesis.”

And families like the Augustines were forced to resolve an internal dilemma that social scientists call “cognitive dissonance.”

“When two beliefs come into conflict in our minds, our brains are not good at just holding the conflict. We have to resolve the conflict,” Banaji said. “You can disown your child or you can change your attitudes toward gay people.”

 After conversion therapy failed to change their son’s sexuality, Teri and Steve Augustine resolved to understand it. Teri asked her children to invite gay Christians they knew to their home.  Her daughter Bethany invited a gay colleague to come to dinner with his partner. Teri learned about the pain he endured when his church rejected him.

Then, during Peter’s junior year of college, his parents went to a Gay Christian Network conference, where they worshiped alongside hundreds of gay, lesbian and transgender Christians. “I grew up with a concept that those two words were mutually exclusive,” he said. He had already begun to believe that Peter could be both gay and Christian, “but Peter is only one person. I saw it in 1,500 people. . . . That was the closest thing I had to a lightbulb.”

What might be different about the gay community, Banaji speculated, is that even before a person came out, “love was in place.” A parent or a co-worker already knows and loves a gay person, and then discovers a person’s sexuality, which is often not obvious right away. “That, I think, is very different from something like age, or race, or body weight that just presents itself immediately upon seeing a person for the first time.”

But for much of the United States, the tipping point in the gay rights movement was something more obvious: marriage equality itself.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, several states had already begun legally recognizing same-sex marriages. A 2015 study found that residents of states with a same-sex marriage policy had the greatest reduction of anti-gay attitudes, when compared with residents of states where same-sex marriage was illegal.

The institution of marriage put a stamp of legitimacy on same-sex couples that allowed straight ones to see them as a family unit, just like theirs, said Andrew Flores of American University, a co-author of the study.

Despite the rapid progress of the gay rights movement, members of the LGBTQ community continue to be targets of violence and hate crimes. The Trump administration has rolled back a number of transgender protections at the federal level and emboldened a conservative base pushing for religious liberty — a backlash that Haider-Markel says parallels the rise of anti-gay movements in the 1970s, such as singer Anita Bryant’s anti-gay “Save Our Children” campaign in Florida, and the Briggs Initiative, a ballot measure in California that would have mandated the firing of any teacher who was gay or pro-gay rights.

“Look at the fact that in many states, if a gay or lesbian couple gets married and has their marriage in the local newspaper, they might lose their jobs,” Haider-Markel said. “That’s not trivial.”

And attitudes about same-sex marriage have remained mostly frozen since 2017. “The positions are hardened,” Haider-Markel said. Statistically, once support for an issue reaches a majority like this one, movement toward 100 percent becomes much more difficult . . . In conservative evangelical circles like the Augustines’, the work of changing minds happens even more slowly.

As for the Augustines, the family left their old church, a conservative evangelical megachurch, for Emmanuel United Methodist Church in Laurel, Md., which calls itself “an affirming community of faith.”

After the service, Teri met with a group of about 10 mothers of LGBT children. Fanning themselves while sitting on floral-printed couches, they went around sharing their stories to a newcomer.

There was the mother whose father, grandfather and uncles were all conservative pastors, and whose daughter recently came out as gay, though none of the extended relatives know. There was the mother of a transgender son who lost touch with her parents after they told her, “If you don’t disown your child, we’ll disown you.”

 As I said, "conservative" religions remain a toxic evil that sow hate and division.

Episcopal Church: Same-Sex Couples Can Marry Anywhere

Christ & St. Luke, Norfolk, VA.

Again demonstrating that it provides a good alternative for gay Catholics who remain burdened by a hypocrisy-filled, stridently anti-gay Church hierarchy, the Episcopal Church now allows same sex couples to marry in their home parish even if the local diocese remains homophobic.  I have long advised LGBT individuals raised in homophobic religious traditions to walk away and, if they feel compelled to still go to church, to find an LGBT friendly denomination.  Having been raised Catholic, I know too well the soul killing atmosphere of Catholicism.  I opted to leave the Catholic Church and after a stint as an Episcopalian, found a church home in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  UPI looks at this development in the Episcopal Church.  Here are highlights:

The Episcopal Church removed restrictions on same-sex marriage, a move that allows all couples to wed where they worship, even if their bishop disapproves.

The action came out of discussions at the General Convention, which wrapped up its triennial meeting in Austin, Texas, on Friday.

Same-sex couples are already allowed to marry across most Episcopal Churches in the United States, but a few U.S. dioceses had not permitted religious wedding ceremonies for this type union.

Friday's decision overrides previous decisions by local dioceses to not allow the liturgies, which currently includes eight of the of the nation's 101 Episcopal dioceses -- Albany, N.Y.; Central Florida; Dallas; Florida; North Dakota; Springfield, Ill.; Tennessee; and the Virgin Islands.

No one spoke against the resolution during a short debate by the House of Deputies, the news service affiliated with the Episcopal Church said.

The Rev. Scot McComas, a deputy from the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, had told his colleagues if they passed the resolution they would be acting as pastors to all the people of the Episcopal Church.

"For 40 years our LGBT brothers and sisters have been at the back of the bus and, every so often, they are invited to move forward one row at a time," McComas said.  The resolution, while being designed to allow same-sex couples to be married in the church, also does not alienate traditionalists.

Dallas Bishop George Sumner told The Dallas Morning News if the circumstance should arise in his diocese, he would reach out to a neighboring bishop to oversee the ceremony, something that is allowed under the resolution.  "We're probably more traditional than other dioceses in the Episcopal Church," Sumner said. "The convention has given us a space to do that."

"It also preserves the ministry of bishops as chief pastors and teachers in our dioceses," Bauerschmidt said. "We will be working out what it means for our diocese with clergy and congregations in the coming days."

Trump Judicial Nominees Seek to Roll Back LGBT Rights

Trump nominee opposes LGBT rights and criticizes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 .

Under the toxic and foul Trump/Pence regime, there is so much destruction being done to regulations that protect public safety, the stability of the banking system, and the legal protections of consumers.  In the dizzying cycles of Trump's latest out rage or the swirling Russiagate investigation, one are that poses a danger to many citizens and LGBT citizens in particular is what Trump is doing to the federal judiciary where he is appointing ideologues and religious zealots to lifetime appointment judge ships.  One pending nominee even has announced hostility to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  These appointees - which Republican lap dogs in the U.S. Senate are mostly confirming - believe in preferential rights for whites and special rights for Christofascists a majority of whom , in my view, are racists and seek to trample n the religious freedoms of other citizens.  A piece in The Daily Beast raises the alarm about what is happening mostly under the radar.  Here are excerpts:

It’s time to sound the alarm again on another bunch of Trump judges queuing up for confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Like the earlier nominees, they are overwhelmingly white and male. One in three has something explicit in their record and/or their writings that is hostile to LGBTQ rights.

“They’re still fighting over whether same sex couples should have the right to marry and have children,” says Sharon McGowan, director of strategy at Lambda Legal, which litigates on behalf of LGBTQ people. “This is a real concerted effort to take back ground that has been lost not only in the law but in public opinion, by putting people on the court that have these views.”

With just 51 votes needed (and yes, it was the Democrats who changed the rule, back in 2013), the GOP can wave through on mostly partisan votes just about everybody the White House sends up.

The only tool the opposition has is to highlight the worst of the worst, and shame some Republican senators into withdrawing their support. Three nominees withdrew last year after negative media coverage (Jeff Mateer, Bret Talley, and Matthew Petersen). Mateer had called transgender children the “spawn of Satan;” Talley had a taste for the paranormal, and Petersen’s inability to answer basic questions about the law went viral.

Heading the list for this season’s worst of the worst is Kyle Duncan, nominated for the 5th Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi) and the “go-to guy for the anti-LGBTQ movement,” says McGowan. “He has spent the last decade plus crafting their arguments and seeking out experts to defend them.” . . . . he has advanced similar arguments against broad-based LGBTQ rights. Duncan says he has a “conscience-based” opposition to what he doesn’t consider “real marriage,” and that he is defending the “age-old bedrock” of traditional marriage.

He was the lawyer advising the North Carolina legislature on its passage of House Bill 2, the so-called bathroom bill, that required people to use the restroom of the gender on their birth certificate. “He recruits experts who say that individuals who have gender identity different from what was assigned at birth are victims of some delusion, and that it’s not a legitimate health situation that science recognizes,” McGowan told The Daily Beast.

All that’s standing between Duncan and a lifetime appointment on the 5th Circuit is a Senate vote. Born in 1972, if confirmed, he could serve 30 or 40 years on the court.

Another nominee with an anti-LGBTQ record awaiting Senate action is Howard Nielson, who turns 50 this year and is teed up for a seat on the federal District Court of Utah. He was part of the legal team in California that defended Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage.

A third nominee, Gordon Giampietro, appeared headed to an easy confirmation as a district judge in Wisconsin until two audio recordings from 2015 surfaced in which he says marriage equality is “against God’s plan,” and LGBTQ people are “troubled” and unfit to be parents. He declares that Justice Anthony Kennedy, the deciding vote on marriage equality in the Supreme Court, “went off the rails years ago.”

He says the new definition of marriage “actually focuses marriage on the sex act. Because if it were simply that we wanted to honor the love of two people, we would allow sons to marry their mothers, brothers to marry their sisters, for example, to get them healthcare.

In online writings that have just surfaced, Giampietro criticizes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an “intrusion into private business,” and says that “calls for diversity” are “code for relaxed standards.”

With so much to pay attention to in every news cycle, the steady stream of Trump judges gets overlooked. They shouldn’t get a free pass. “If we don’t protect the courts, the courts won’t protect us,” says McGowan. “We can hold our breath and make it through four years, but these are lifetime appointments.”

The Roll Back of Marriage Equality Appears to Have Begun

In a very troubling move, the United States Supreme Court refused to take an appeal by the City of Houston, Texas that challenged the validity of a Texas Supreme Court ruling that held that cities and localities could refuse to grant equal spousal benefits to same sex spouses as those provided to heterosexual couples. While the action by the nation's highest court does not indicate which justices voted to deny granting certiorari, it is a safe bet that Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch fully supported throwing gays under the bus and ignoring the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  Given that the original lawsuit was brought by a Christofascist organization, one can only wonder when spousal benefits for interracial married couples will come under attack.  In June, 2016, when he met with a who's who of Christofascist leaders, Trump promised to roll back marriage equality.  This ruling would appear to be a first step in delivering on that promise to those who are in reality hate group leaders. Sadly, same sex couples living in red states may well soon find the value of the marital rights being undermined. Here are details from Reuters:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Houston’s appeal of a lower court ruling that threw into doubt the city’s spousal benefits to gay married municipal employees, allowing a case that tests the reach of the landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide to proceed.

The justices left intact a June ruling by the Republican-dominated Texas Supreme Court that revived a lawsuit backed by a conservative group aimed at blocking Houston from offering such benefits.

“This is an incredible early Christmas present from the U.S. Supreme Court for taxpayers,” Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, a conservative group that advocates “biblical, Judeo-Christian values” that backed the lawsuit, said in a statement.

The high court’s action set no nationwide precedent but may give a boost to conservative legal efforts to limit the effects of its decision in the case Obergefell v. Hodges that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to gay couples under the U.S. Constitution.

The case will now proceed in a Texas state court, which could decide to stop the benefits offered by the fourth most populous U.S. city. Such a ruling again could be appealed to the nation’s top court.

Houston City Attorney Ron Lewis said that in the meantime the city’s policy to provide the benefits will remain in effect.

The Houston case began in 2013 when Jack Pidgeon, a local Christian pastor, and Larry Hicks, an accountant, sued the city after Annise Parker, a Democrat who was its first openly gay mayor, gave municipal spousal benefits such as health insurance and life insurance to same-sex married couples.

Pidgeon and Hicks, also backed by state Republican leaders, argued that the benefits violated the Texas constitution and state and local laws against same-sex marriage. A state trial court initially sided with them, but after the 2015 Obergefell decision, an appeals court reversed that ruling.

Lawyers for Pidgeon and Hicks told the state Supreme Court that the Obergefell ruling should be interpreted narrowly and did not require states to give taxpayer subsidies to same-sex couples any more than the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion required states to subsidize abortions.

In June, the Texas Supreme Court threw out the ruling favoring Houston, agreeing that the Obergefell decision “did not hold that states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons,” and remanded the case back to the trial court to allow the men to make their arguments again. 

One can only hope that the lower court will ultimately rule against religious based bigotry. But then again, we are talking about Texas. Thankfully, for the next four (4) years Virginia's statewide offices will be held by Democrats and a bulwark against this kind of religious based animus and hatred.  My advice to those LGBT citizens living in red states is this: work like hell to elect Democrats and, if that fails and the roll back of marriage equality continues, consider moving to a blue state.  If you opt for the latter course of action, make sure you tell your family and employer why you are leaving and set the stage for economic consequences against anti-LGBT states.

Australia Overwhelmingly Votes "Yes" for Marriage Equality

Despite the efforts of the sex abuse scandal plagued Roman Catholic Church and reactionary Christian denominations - some of which were aided by American Christofascist and their hate group organizations - Australians overwhelmingly voted "Yes" for marriage equality.  Now, it is up to that nation's parliament to enact a bill that puts in place laws consistent with the will of its citizens.  The Sydney Morning Herald looks at the results of the vote.  Here are excerpts:

A majority of people in every state and territory said Yes. The Yes vote was largely consistent, representing 60-65 per cent of the vote in all but two states and territories. In the ACT, nearly three quarters of the population said yes (74 per cent) while in NSW only 57.8 per cent was in favour of same-sex marriage.

More than three quarters of the Australia’s eligible voters took part, with the Northern Territory (58.7 per cent) the only state or territory to not reach that level.
 Only 17 of Australia’s 150 electorates voted No. Most of these (12) were in New South Wales. Three electorates in Queensland voted No, and two in Victoria. That means every single electorate in Australia’s five smallest states and territories voted Yes.

Yes votes reached up to 83.7 per cent in the inner-city electorates of Melbourne and Sydney.

It may host the annual Mardi Gras but Sydney is not as gay-friendly as it may seem. The Yes vote was lower in Sydney (55.3%) than in any other of Australia’s five biggest cities. In fact the Yes vote in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide was almost identical - all falling within one per cent of each other.

In everywhere but NSW, city-dwellers were more likely to vote Yes than people in regional areas.

The overall participation rate was nearly 80 per cent, a very high number for a voluntary survey. More than 70 per cent of eligible voters in every single age bracket took part.

Be prepared to see right wing Christians in Australia begin to claim that they are being persecuted because they are unable to inflict their beliefs on all of Australian society. 

Germany Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Germany's Parliament voted somewhat belatedly yesterday to doing the rest of modern Western Europe by legalizing same sex marriage.  As in America, same sex marriage has been used as a political football by politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel who moved to allow the vote even though she voted "no" on the measure.  Why?  Political expedience and the realization that blocking a vote could hurt her reelection prospects.  In Germany, religious groups, including child the rapist protecting Catholic Church, have opposed LGBT equality, clinging to a 12th century understanding of sexuality and sexual orientation.  Of course, it must be remembered that with notable exceptions, Germany's churches climbed aboard the Nazi train, seeking to retain power and wealth (the Vatican did the same thing in Italy with Mussolini).  The the parallel with America is that it is Germany's rural regions that have opposed marriage equality while modern urban areas, the economic dynamo of the economy, have favored it. The Washington Post reports on the development.  Here are excerpts:

Germany on Friday recognized the right of same-sex couples to wed, a major step for gay women and men living in a country split between conservative, Christian customs and modernizing forces.

The German Parliament voted 393-226 to modify the country’s civil code, reshaping the institution of marriage with little fanfare but enormous significance as Germany prepares to join much of the Western world in codifying marriage equality. After clearing a path for lawmakers to approve the measure, Chancellor Angela Merkel ultimately opposed it herself.

“It’s a joyous turning-point,” said Volker Beck, who has campaigned for gay rights for decades, as a spokesman for the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany before he entered Parliament as a member of the Green Party. “Equality and civil rights have been achieved.” 

For some, the surprise was only how long it took, in a country often seen as a progressive model for the region. Notable, also, was how quickly the matter moved forward once it was brought up this week. 

At issue was a web of dynamics, from Nazi-era repression to the way in which political parties have derived their power from religious groups. Over time, however, church attendance has waned, and polling suggests that a comfortable majority of the public supports same-sex marriage. 

Since 2001, Germany has allowed civil partnerships, which afford many of the same benefits accruing to married couples, with the notable exception of the right to joint adoption. 

Electoral pressures facing Merkel also appeared central, leading some gay Germans to wonder whether they were political instruments for the German leader running for a fourth term in September.

Marriage was becoming a wedge issue, and by easing her resistance, Merkel swept it away from her opponents. The Social Democrats, a center-left group forming part of the chancellor's governing coalition, had declared future cooperation contingent on same-sex marriage. Smaller parties on whom Merkel might depend should she be reelected in the fall, such as the Greens, said the same. 

The chancellor has often made leftist causes, from wages to nuclear power, her own. In this case, however, she kept the issue at arm’s length. After enabling its consideration, which all but guaranteed passage, she ultimately voted no.

Her personal reservations could ease backlash from the conservative wing of her party, and from its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union, which is staunchly Catholic. The German Bishops’ Conference opposed the vote in a statement condemning the “hasty procedure” for overriding the “Christian concept of marriage.” 

The uneasy advancement of gay people in the E.U.’s largest country reflects vast social differences within Germany, as well as its tortured past.   

“Berlin and some of the conservative villages in the south of Germany — they exist on different planets,” said Andreas Kraß of the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies at the Humbold University in Berlin.

It was in Berlin that the gay rights movement began at the turn of the 20th century, with the founding of the first gay rights organization, said Robert Beachy, author of “Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity.” 

But the capital wasn’t “back in its glory,” he said, until reunification in 1990, as homosexuality was as dangerous in the postwar period as it had been under the reign of the Third Reich. Just last week, Parliament voided convictions under an anti-sodomy law sharpened by the Nazis and then preserved by West Germany.  

The much welcomed vote represents another much deserved defeat for the Catholic Church and other denominations that continue to base their beliefs on hatred of others and the embrace of ignorance.  I continue to believe that religion, especially  conservative Christianity and fundamentalist Islam, are net evils in the world.  The world and humankind would be better off if they both ceased to exist.

Congressional Republicans Shamelessly Prostitute Themselves to Christofascists

The self-prostitution to Christofascists that I saw Republican elected officials engage in prior my leaving the GOP years ago pales in comparison to what now passes for normal within the party.  The irony, of course, is that over time those elected officials who most loudly proclaim their support of "Christian values"  and maintain the most anti-LGBT voting records are the same folks that one sees being arrested for child porn or sexual misbehavior with underage boys as happened recently with a strident "family values" state level Republican. As Right Wing Watch reports, two dozen Congressional Republicans took self-prostitution to new lengths when they joined Religious Right activists in Washington, D.C., for the annual “Washington – A Man of Prayer” event, held in Statuary Hall inside the U.S. Capitol.  Rep. Randy Weber of Texas literally broke into crocodile tears and begged God to forgive this nation for the “sin” of marriage equality in an effort no doubt to win Christofascist votes.  Here are highlights:

Last night, nearly two dozen members of Congress joined Religious Right activists in Washington, D.C., for the annual “Washington – A Man of Prayer” event, held in Statuary Hall inside the U.S. Capitol.

Organized by The Jefferson Gathering, which is a project of right-wing pastor Jim Garlow’s Skyline Church in California, the prayer event was kicked off by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan while Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., served as honorary hosts.

Over the course of an hour and a half, 20 different members of Congress took to the podium to lead the gathering in prayer, including Rep. Randy Weber of Texas, who repeatedly choked up while begging God to forgive this nation for the “sins” of legal abortion and marriage equality.

Modifying the Lord’s Prayer to declare that “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth here in the halls of Congress,” Weber confessed the “sins our nation has been so emboldened to embark upon” and pleaded with God to forgive us.

“We have endeavored to try and kick your word out of public schools,” Weber said. “Father, we have endeavored to take the Bible out of classrooms, the Ten Commandments off the walls. Oh, Lord, forgive us. Father, we think we’re so smart, we have replaced your word and your precepts with drug-sniffing dogs, with metal detectors, with uniformed police officers in our schools. Oh, Lord, forgive us.”

“Father, we have trampled on your holy institution of holy matrimony and tried to rewrite what it is and we’ve called it an alternate lifestyle,” Weber continued, his voice cracking. “Father, oh Father, please forgive us.”

“Lord, we have gone to killing the most innocent amongst us,” he wept. “Your servant Moses warned in Deuteronomy 19 for us to choose life so that we and all our descendants might live. Father, we’re killing our descendants and we’re calling it a choice. Oh, God in heaven, forgive us, please.”

Many of these same Republicans, however, despite last night's performance show their real view of true Christian values as they push legislation that will thrown millions off of health insurance, cut social safety net programs, take from the needy to give to the wealthy, and lie with abandon.  The biblical Pharisees were upstanding in comparison.  These Republicans are yet another reason that I do not want the label "Christian" attached to me in any way.  A tawdry whore likely has more integrity and honesty than these political prostitutes.  

Why Silence Equals Death in the Age of Trump

One of the things I worry about is the increased threats that LGBT individuals will likely face under the reign of Der Fuhrer, a/k/a Donald Trump, is the likely resurgence of anti-LGBT animus which will be eagerly fanned by Christofascists and their puppets in the Republican Party, including Der Fuhrer who seems to have sold his soul (or whatever approximates one in Trump's case) to secure the evangelical extremist Christian vote.  This has the potential to drive some members of the LGBT community back into the closet, particularly LGBT youth and those living in backward rural areas. For some, like myself and the husband, going back in the closet simply not an option.  We are simply too "out" and too well know by both friend and foe.  A piece in Vice makes the case of why we all must resist the urge to "pass" as straight or go back in the closet.  Long term, it is self-defeating even if potentially comforting in the short term.   Here are article highlights: 

Since the moment Donald Trump was elected president, LGBTQ Americans have joined with members of nearly every other minority group in fretting about which of their hard-earned advances might suddenly be blocked or rolled back. Among the concrete gains currently at risk are an executive order prohibiting discrimination by some 30,000 federal contractors, a government interpretation of existing law that guarantees transgender students the right to proper accommodations, and a widely-praised new military policy that ended years of senseless discrimination against LGBTQ service members. Not to mention the triumph of marriage equality in all fifty states, a legal status that would be difficult (though not impossible) to reverse.

It's perfectly understandable that LGBTQ people would focus on the concrete policies and protections that a Trump government might imperil. Yet there is another layer of gains—perhaps more subtle, but every bit as crucial to the improvement of LGBTQ lives—that are also put at risk by the rise of Trump and what he represents: the full-throttled freedom to be and express ourselves, as we truly are.

This focus on authentic, expressive liberty, on the power of words and other forms of communication to shape the reality of our lives in unique and profound ways, has been one of the most enduring contributions of queer thought to American culture. It has special resonance for LGBTQ people because many (though by no means all) of us are able to "pass" as straight or cisgender. Those queer feelings or desires that make us part of the LGBTQ community are largely internal; while external signs can be discernible—especially for some trans and gender-nonconforming people—in general, what we feel at heart is hidden unless we make it known or are outed.

The corollary to this ability to pass has been the insistence by anti-LGBTQ forces that being queer is a "choice," and that we already have the same freedoms as everyone else—all we have to do is decide to operate as straight or cisgender, and we'll realize, Wizard of Oz-like, that we can serve in uniform (if we repress or control our "confusion"), marry (someone of the opposite sex), or use a public restroom (that matches our sex at birth). The insistence that we "choose" to be gay or transgender is another way of saying that we don't actually exist as gay or trans people, that everyone is naturally straight or cis, and some of us simply have a gender or sexuality "problem."

The age of Trump, which has already unleashed a wave of hate crimes, will bring a whole new level of pressure to cover as a way to minimize our vulnerability to genuine harm, either by the government or the public. Now is the time to remind ourselves that there is no true liberty without insisting on the freedom to be, and express, who we really are. In the face of those who will demand that we repress our queerness, what's most important for the future of queer lives under Trump is that we continue to come out, stay out, and show that we exist. Short of doing that, we'll only ever enjoy our rights under the condition that we "cover" who we really are, and those aren't rights or freedoms at all. 

Of course, this challenge is nothing new for LGBTQ Americans, and we can look to our own history for guidance even in this unprecedented age. Queer people have always faced the choice of whether to assimilate as the price for acceptance or to insist on our right to be different. With the triumph of marriage equality, it often appears that the LGBTQ movement opted for assimilation over liberation. While there's truth to this, it is also true that nearly every major issue and policy our movement has tackled advanced not just our right to be like everybody else, but this broader ideal of expressive freedom—and not just for LGBTQ people, but for all Americans.

Ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy was not about allowing or integrating gay people into the military; we were already there. Instead, it was about ensuring that we could come out and serve honestly, about no longer forcing us to lie or pretend or play a role as a condition of service. The same was true of the more recent elimination of the military's transgender ban and, in a wider sense, the Obama Administration's transgender school guidance and support for transgender equality.

Legal protections against anti-LGBTQ discrimination can be crucial to one's livelihood. But they are equally crucial to allowing us to acknowledge, and thus to be, who we are.

The importance of these expressive freedoms can also be grasped by considering why their opponents sought to repress them. The reason DADT was so insidious was that it singled out a particular group for unfair punishment, and then prevented that group from defending itself, asserting its existence, and thus fighting to secure its rights. The reason hate crimes are so reprehensible is because they are used to intimidate entire groups as a way to police our behavior and expression. This is why denying discrimination protections is so contemptible—because without job safety in coming out, millions of Americans stay mired in the closet, unable to show the world just how unthreatening we truly are. 

And without the freedom to marry, we were denied the opportunity to show the world that our love had the same worth and dignity as any other love. Keeping gay people silent and invisible—as war heroes and ordinary civilians—was key to preventing our advances. The creation of the closet reinforced the belief that, at best, we didn't exist, and at worst, we were a lurking threat to everything virtuous and worthwhile.

[R]eversal of these gains would make our lives far worse than they were before. Having increasingly built our lives around the freedom to express ourselves as we are, pressure to crawl back into the closet would not only be a harrowing loss, but would create all kinds of new hardships.

Rolling back state recognition of such relationships could mean imperiling legal protections for hundreds of thousands of children, and even severing ties between children and their parents.

In all these cases, advances in law have not been about social experimentation or political correctness; they have been about catching up with realities of American life. They were realities sometimes obscured by delusional or deceptive social conservatives hankering to return to an idealized America (back when it was, er, "great").

The good news is this: If these expressive freedoms are vulnerable to reversal, they are ultimately extremely difficult to roll back. . . . Even trying to block further advances will be increasingly tough, given the number of Americans from all backgrounds and political affiliations who now know and love someone who is LGBTQ.

What's needed now is solidarity among all these groups who prize and rely on expressive liberty for a life that's worth living. We've spent too many hundreds of years being forced to pretend we were something we're not; we all know how repressive, demeaning and inimical that was to the genuine pursuit of happiness. What's also needed is a redoubling of our own commitment to combatting our fear, to fighting the urge to repress or to pass or to cover, even when dangers confront us. If the LGBTQ movement (and its compatriots) have given the world anything worth protecting, it's been this invaluable contribution to the Enlightenment ideal that individuals must be truly free to be themselves, and the unforgettable lesson that silence, indeed, equals death.

 #NotMyPresident.  I will personally, never, ever be closeted again.

Clinton, Kaine Pro-LGBTQ Because of Faith

One hears constant religious based justification for anti-LGBT hate and bigotry, especially from right wing pastors, Catholic Church child molester enablers, and, of course, parasitic professional Christians seeking to line their pockets with money skimmed from the ignorant and gullible. As a result, I and many others view religion with disgust and have largely walked away from organized religion entirely.   Almost never does one hear religion used to justify LGBT equality and non-discrimination.  Yet that is precisely being done by Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, who I have the privilege of talking with in the past.  A piece at NBC News looks at this turn about on religion and LGBT individuals.  Here are highlights:

There has never been a more pro-LGBT presidential campaign than Clinton and Kaine ticket. The Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees have the most comprehensive LGBT platform America has ever seen. A Clinton administration promises to pass the Equality Act, protect transgender rights, and end the pseudo-scientific practice of conversion therapy. It's the most progressive LGBT platform the United States has ever seen, and it's being spearheaded by two people of faith.

Clinton, a Methodist, and Kaine, a Catholic, are vocal both about their devout faith and to their commitment to the LGBT community. At the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner, Kaine shared his progression from opposing LGBT equality to becoming a supporter of it.

"As a devout Catholic, while I was battling for LGBTQ equality, I believed that marriage was something different," Kaine said. "I knew gay couples as friends in my neighborhood. I knew them to be great neighbors. I knew them to be great parents to beautiful kids. And I saw them struggle with antiquated and even hostile adoption laws. But I had a difficult time reconciling that reality, what I knew to be true from the evidence of my own life, with the teachings of the faith that I have been raised in for my entire life."

[Pope] Francis still holds anti-LGBT beliefs that he isn't afraid of sharing. The Pope has likened transgender individuals to nuclear weapons and believes that same-sex relationships are sinful. Similarly, the United Methodist Church holds anti-LGBT beliefs.

While Clinton and Kaine's support for the LGBT community is clearly at odds with their denominations, it is in perfect harmony with their faith. For Kaine, it is his belief in a Creator that names all of creation "very good" and who believes in celebrating "God's beautiful diverse family" that led him to call for LGBT equality. In his speech at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner, Kaine even went as far to say during his that the Catholic Church would one day change the position on marriage to include same-sex couples.

Clinton's religious beliefs called her to care for others. In speaking to a group of Baptists, Religion News Service reported, Clinton described her faith as an "activist, social justice faith, a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-your-hands-dirty faith."

Throughout her talk, Clinton emphasized scripture and religious teachings that demanded us to love one another and work toward justice. "Do all the good you can for all the people you can in all the ways you can as long as ever you can," Clinton said repeating a popular Methodist saying.

This progressive faith rooted in social justice creates a stark contrast to the Republican ticket. Donald Trump has used Christianity as a way to court the Evangelical vote, while promoting beliefs that are inherently anti-gospel, and is seen visibly uncomfortable in houses of worship.

Clinton and Kaine aren't alone. Progressive Christians point to their beliefs as the reason to proudly claim Black Lives Matter, welcome refugees, aide the poor and sick, and in advocating for full spiritual and legal equality of LGBT people. Still Clinton and Kaine's support of LGBT equality disrupts a mainstreamed idea that Christianity is inherently anti-LGBT. Mostly because there haven't been such visible people of faith who are also this vocal about being LGBT allies in a major election.

It is the norm for anti-LGBT politicians to cite their religious beliefs, and then claim religious freedom, to be able to pass legislation that oppresses the LGBT community. For too long conservative Christians have hijacked religious language and have used it to vilify the LGBT community. Clinton and Kaine's staunch support for LGBT rights, while concurrently centered in their faith, presents a new idea to Americans: Christians can be pro LGBT -- not in spite of their faith but because of it. 

 It is refreshing to see religion being used in a positive manner instead of as a vehicle for furthering hatred and division.  That said, it will take much more for me to view religion as anything but a net negative for humankind. 

Trump Poses a Threat to the LGBT Community

Trump with leading anti-LGBT Christofascists

Perhaps being a member of a demographic that has been - and still is - targeted for hatred, discrimination and even potential physical violence makes one more sensitive to potential threats.  I suspect few white Trump supporters have been called a faggot and intimidated by police or had to fear for their physical safety.  Nor have they heard "men of god" call for their murder or criminalization.  Yet for many LGBT Americans, these things happen frequently, especially n rural areas of the country.  Now, we are faced with a Republican presidential candidate and his vice presidential running mate who have said they would role back marriage rights and other civil rights. Indeed, Trump's VP pick has a well documented history of being anti-LGBT.  And yet I find some friends - or at least those who seem to thing of themselves as friends - likely supporting the Trump/Pence ticket, saying it's merely a matter of a difference in political philosophies.  I'm sorry, but taking away my civil rights, opposing non-discrimination protections that would have prevented me from being forced from a law firm merely for being gay is something far, far greater than a mere difference in "political philosophies."  An op-ed at CNN looks at the threat that Trump/Pence poses to the LGBT community both here in America and overseas. Here are highlights:

Recently, ISIS pushed four men off a building in Mosul because they were suspected of being gay. Last month, the Ugandan government detained citizens attending a pride parade and ordered them beaten by other inmates. In Bangladesh, the editor of the nation's only LGBTQ magazine was recently found hacked to death.

As we consider what the 2016 election will mean for LGBTQ equality across the United States, we also can't forget what this election will mean for our global community.

Donald Trump has spent his campaign threatening to undo crucial protections for LGBTQ people in the United States, vowing to appoint judges to the Supreme Court to turn back the legalization of same-sex marriage and supporting state-sanctioned discrimination against transgender people.

He has courted extremists who foment hate both here and export it abroad. His running mate, Mike Pence, as a congressman in 2009, opposed language in federal legislation to monitor and combat human rights violations against LGBTQ people abroad, accusing Democrats of attempting to "promote a gay rights agenda around the globe."

Trump has also sought support from leading exporters of anti-LGBTQ hate, including the Alliance Defending Freedom. Well known for the work it does within US borders, ADF is also spreading hate in countries around the world, from fighting equality in Russia to recruiting and training anti-equality activists in Nepal.

Together, Donald Trump and Mike Pence seem to have little interest in -- and perhaps little understanding of -- the dire plight faced by asylum seekers, including those who seek to flee the violence of ISIS or escape the anti-LGBTQ regime in Russia. And yet, Trump says he's a friend to the LGBTQ community. But let's look at what he would actually do.

Recently, Trump proposed an ideology test on new immigrants that would require those coming into the United States to show they are, among other things, tolerant of LGBTQ people. Putting aside the fact that he and Mike Pence would apparently fail their own ideology test on several fronts, the very existence of such a vetting policy would create another obstacle for refugees —including LGBTQ people fleeing countries where they can literally be put to death simply because of who they are. 

By contrast, today -- thanks to the work of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, and others -- LGBTQ people can receive priority resettlement because they face a significant threat of violence, torture, and even death in the countries they are leaving. The policy also prioritizes other vulnerable groups such as children, widows and older refugees, as well as targeted communities like religious and ethnic minorities.

While Trump was busy cozying up to Vladimir Putin back in 2011, Clinton was declaring before the international community that "gay rights are human rights." She was creating the Global Equality Fund, which supports human rights defenders working to protect LGBTQ people in more than 80 countries.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence pose a clear threat to equality here in the United States, particularly when it comes to marriage equality, basic civil rights protections and the makeup of our Supreme Court. But let's also consider what's on the line for the gay teen living in Jamaica or the transgender woman living in Honduras or the men living in daily fear of being exposed, targeted and murdered by ISIS.  For them, our foreign policy can mean life or death.

In a Trump-Pence administration, does anyone think human rights for all will remain a pillar of our foreign policy? Or that our embassies abroad will provide the same beacon of hope to local LGBTQ communities? Or that whomever Trump selects as his secretary of state or UN ambassador will go before the international community to fight against discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity?

Would Donald Trump stand up against hateful legislation in countries like Russia and Uganda when he's endorsed the ability of US states to legalize discrimination? The answers to all of those questions are: clearly not.

This election is about many crucial issues of great importance here at home. But we can't forget that we also hold lives in our hands around the globe. Who we elect as our next president will either destroy the progress we've made or continue building toward a world where all LGBTQ people are safe from violence, discrimination and fear. 

For those would be Trump supporters who see themselves as having LGBT friends, I hope they will open their eyes and understand that a vote for Trump/Pence is a vote against those they claim to hold as friends. A history of voting Republican does not justify or excuse voting for a ticket that preaches so much hate and misogyny.  Elections often consist of selecting the lesser of evils.  When it comes to those with LGBT friends and/or family members, voting for Hillary Clinton should be the only option. 

Donald Trump Is Mortally Dangerous To LGBT Equality

Not only is Donald Trump a crooked businessman prone to lies and demagoguery, but he poses a mortal threat towards LGBT rights and equality as he courts the leaders of virulently anti-gay "family values" organizations, a number of which have been certified as hate groups, including Family Research Council ("FRC").  Trump will make a pact with the devil to further his self-promotion, and there is nothing that the Christofascists demand more than special rights for themselves and the denigration of LGBT individuals and their families.  A column in Huffington Post looks at the threat that Trump poses.  Here are excerpts:

Contrary to those in the media and elsewhere who claimed he was “far more accepting” on LGBT issues than other GOP candidates, Donald Trump is proving that he very much will be a force against LGBT equality if elected president. And he’s doing it in a more insidious, under-the-radar way than any previous GOP presidential nominee.

Though he rarely raises his positions against LGBT rights on the campaign trail, Trump is making pacts with anti-LGBT forces. Today, Trump spoke at the Road to the Majority summit in Washington, an event attended by Christian right activists and sponsored by the Faith and Freedom Coalition and Concerned Women for America, both of which fight against LGBT rights. “I’m with you 100 percent,” he said, and, knowing the event was televised live on the cable networks, he spoke with a dog whistle on LGBT rights, alluding to attacks on “marriage and family” and championing “religious freedom,” which of course has been the term used by evangelicals to deny LGBT people of rights. The crowd roared with approval.

And on June 21, in New York, Trump will have a private meeting with over 400 of the most bigoted, most homophobic and most influential anti-LGBT advocates in the United States — from Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins to James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family — the bedrock of the religious right, which has been a prominent part of the base of the Republican Party for decades. Many of these groups, like Family Research Council, have been labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. No GOP president in roughly five decades has been elected without the religious right turning out in big numbers. No GOP president has been elected in modern times without evangelical pastors railing from pulpits across the country, telling followers that the only way to save the country is to support the GOP presidential candidate. Ben Carson, who has taken a prominent role in Trump’s campaign, will moderate the discussion between Trump and the hundreds of anti-LGBT activists, which is closed to the media and thus tightly controlled.

Trump had already quietly made pacts with some anti-LGBT forces, and promised to do what he can to overturn the Supreme Court’s historic Obergefell ruling, which he called, “shocking.” He promised he’d appoint justices to the Supreme Court who might do that, and certainly the list of extreme judges he provided recently shouldn’t give LGBT people any comfort.

Though he opposes marriage equality and supports a bill in Congress that will allow religious exemptions for anti-gay individuals and businesses that don’t want to provide services to LGBT people, The New York Times, for example, focused on Trump’s sending a congratulations note to Elton John eleven years ago on his civil union as one among several weak examples that supposedly show him to be more gay-friendly.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago, simply having Ben Carson prominent in his campaign — a man who compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia — is an affront to LGBT people. And as RightWingWatch’s Brian Tashman noted, Trump has also “partnered with Harlem’s notorious ‘stone homos‘ pastor James David Manning and far-right radio show host Alex Jones, who thinks the LGBT rights movement is a ‘suicide cult’ bent on the destruction of humanity.”

Christian right leaders got behind Ronald Reagan, who was divorced, and George H. W. Bush, who formerly supported abortion rights, after they were romanced a bit and quietly forged pacts with the candidates, including regarding stopping advancement on gay rights. That process is happening right now with Trump. His campaign, and certainly Republican leaders, know he cannot win without motivating a large portion of evangelicals. And right now anti-LGBT laws and measures meant to blunt equality are animating religious conservatives in a big way, . . .

No matter what Trump has said in the past, or what the media or desperate gay Republicans may say now, there’s no question that Trump must bow to an anti-LGBT agenda if he wants to win the presidency. That makes him a mortal danger to LGBT equality.