Pope Francis Opts to Choose Ignorance With Respect to Sexuality

The Catholic Church has a centuries, if not millennium, long history of rejecting science and modern knowledge rather than admit that its antiquated dogma is flat out wrong. In the past, the Church's leadership refused to concede that the Earth revolved around the Sun instead of vice versa, it insisted that the Earth was flat, previous Popes supported slavery, and now, fast forwarding time-wise, Pope Francis is rejected modern medical and mental health science on sexual orientation and gender identity.  

Other than quacks funded by right wing groups or religiously affiliated institutions, the consensus among the medical and mental health professional community is that both sexual orientation and gender identity are set in utero BEFORE children are born as a result of hormonal influences that impact on both physical development as well as brain development that sets once sexual orientation and ones gender identity - the latter being the cause of individuals being transgender.  Like it or not, some people ARE born with mismatched physical attributes and gender identity.  Others are born gay.  Now, Pope Francis in true knuckle dragger form has dismissed the fact that a person’s gender can differ from the assigned sex at birth.  Anything rather than admit that the Church's ignorance based 12th century dogma on sex and sexuality is simply wrong.  No one "chooses" to be gay or to be transgender.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Francis' decision to place the Church once again on the wrong side of science and, down the road history.  One can only hope that Francis' wrongheaded decision will only serve to accelerate the flight from the Church.  Here are article excerpts:

ROME — Warning of a society “without sexual differences,” the Vatican on Monday dismissed the idea that a person’s gender can differ from the assigned sex at birth and said a fluid idea of identity was not “based on the truths of existence.”

The right to “choose one’s gender,” the Vatican said in an official document, is in “direct contradiction of the model of marriage as being between one man and one woman.”

The document, released as a guide for Catholic educators, held firm to the religion’s traditional teaching on gender and sexuality. But ­LGBT members of the faith said it put an official and updated stamp on viewpoints they had hoped were changing.

“This casts everything back to the Dark Ages,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of ­DignityUSA, a group that advocates for ­LGBT equality and inclusion in the church. “I think it is incredibly insensitive, to be talking still about gender and sexuality as a choice and a momentary whim rather than a fundamental God-given identity.”

The document, released by the Vatican office that deals with education, coincided with a month of Pride festivities in many countries around the world. It was not signed by Francis, but rather by two high-level officials — Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi and Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani — in the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s bureaucracy.

The church’s retrenchment hints at one of the challenges it faces at a time of growing secularization — when many of its teachings on sexuality are being ignored as out of date. Francis has expressed an interest in outreach to ­LGBT followers, but he has also taken a clear stance on gender identity, decrying that children are taught in schools that “everyone can choose his or her sex.”

The church made a case that children had the right to grow up in a family “with a father and a mother,” and the document quoted an earlier Francis speech about how children benefit from seeing masculinity represented by the father and femininity represented by the mother. Traditionalist groups lauded the 31-page Vatican document, titled “Male and Female He Created Them.”

The Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit who has advocated for the church to more openly welcome ­LGBT members, said on Twitter that the document calls for dialogue and listening “but sets aside the real-life experiences of ­LGBT people.”

“Sadly,” Martin wrote, “it will be used as a cudgel against transgender people, and an excuse to argue that they shouldn’t even exist.”

The good news is that the Church is hemorrhaging members.  In my youth, all of my family was made up of church-going Catholics.  Now, none of us remain in the Church and the newest generation has not been baptized at all.  This experience is not unique to my family.  Francis seems hell bent to cling to ignorance and, if it continues, the Catholic Church will one day be a church centered in the most ignorant and uneducated parts of the world, namely Africa and limited parts of South America. Given the evils the Church has done in the past, the collapse of the Church in the developed world will be a positive development.

More Monday Male Beauty

Evangelical Churches' Reckoning May Be At Hand

Evangelical churches have long denied that they suffer from a sexual abuse crisis similar to that which has consumed the Catholic Church all across the globe.  That's not to say there isn't a rampant sexual abuse problem in evangelical churches.  Rather due to the decentralized structure of these churches - the Southern Baptist Convention is a prime example - central accountability is harder to establish and and many leaders disingenuously plead ignorance.  Then too, there is the repeated problem of church leaders rallying members to support the abuser and condemn the victim.  Indeed, demanding accountability becomes labeled as an attack on god and the church.  Often, the victims and their families become outcasts.  In my view, the problem is three fold: (i) an abuse of power by pastors and other church leaders, (ii) an absurd 12th century dogma on sexuality (that is stridently homophobic) inherited from the Catholic Church, and (iii) churches offering a haven where the sexually maladjusted can hide.  The end result is institutions that put their own prosperity and reputations over the lives of their members.  A lengthy piece in the New York Times looks at one abuse case - at least 700 victims were identified in an a recent investigation by The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News - that demonstrates that the Catholic hierarchy is not alone in caring nothing for victims of abuse.  Here are article highlights: 

HURST, Tex. — Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed: “We see you.” Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out.

Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church’s summer camp for children. Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church’s associate children’s minister, had been investigated by the police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Ms. Bragg’s daughter.

Ms. Bragg waited for church leaders to explain what had happened and thoroughly inform other families in the congregation. She waited for the Village to take responsibility and apologize. She waited to have even one conversation with Mr. Chandler, a leader she had long admired. Evangelical churches have long distanced themselves from the sexual abuse crisis that has consumed the Catholic Church. Many Southern Baptists have dismissed sexual abuse as a problem caused by “corrupt Hollywood” or “liberal theology.” But a reckoning has arrived.

Nearly 400 Southern Baptist leaders, from youth pastors to top ministers, have pleaded guilty or were convicted of sex crimes against more than 700 victims since 1998, according to a recent investigation by The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News. Superstar pastors like Bill Hybels and Andy Savage have been forced to resign over allegations of misconduct.

After years of resisting reform, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, promised that it would address the problem this week at its annual gathering of thousands of pastors. At the Village, one of the most prominent Southern Baptist churches in the country and a bedrock of Texas evangelical culture, Ms. Bragg said leaders offered prayer. . . .  But as months passed, she came to believe their instinct to protect the institution outweighed their care for her daughter or their interest in investigating the truth.

For years she trusted that her church’s top leaders had acted in the best interest of the congregation, and that if she disagreed, the problem was hers. She had a spiritual reason: to doubt them was to doubt God.

The Village, like many other evangelical churches, uses a written membership agreement containing legal clauses that protect the institution. The Village’s agreement forbids members from suing the church, and instead requires mediation and then binding arbitration, legal processes that often happen in secret.

The Village also uses an abuse prevention firm called MinistrySafe, which many evangelical churches cite as an accountability safeguard. Ms. Bragg assumed MinistrySafe would advocate for her daughter, but then she learned that the group’s leaders were the church’s legal advisers.

The Village permanently removed Mr. Tonne from the staff within weeks of learning his name from the Braggs. To this day, the Village denies he was fired because of a sexual abuse allegation.

The Village declined to answer a list of detailed questions about the matter from The New York Times, and Mr. Chandler declined multiple requests to be interviewed. The Village said that the church “promptly” met with the Braggs, provided outside professional counselors and received the Braggs’ signoff on all of their public communications “in an effort for honesty, transparency and to avoid any embarrassment or concern.”

But the Braggs, along with several of their friends, see things differently. They have now left the Village, worried that raising their children in an environment where her family was not supported was, in Ms. Bragg’s words, “spiritually abusive.” “No one was looking out for our daughter’s best interest,” she said, speaking publicly for the first time. “She matters. Jesus says she matters. We say she matters.”

They signed the church’s Membership Covenant, an agreement stating they would submit to the Bible and to the authority and spiritual discipline of church leaders. Members promise to “practice complete chastity” unless in a heterosexual marriage, to “refrain from illegal drug use, drunkenness, gossip,” and to “diligently strive for unity and peace within the church.” Leaders promise “to lovingly exercise discipline when necessary.”

Mr. Chandler has become a brand name in American evangelicalism, with a large national following. Many young people see his faith as authentic, even cool.

With more than 10,000 weekly attendees, the Village now has five campuses across the Dallas area. Mr. Chandler is raising money to build a new campus that is likely to cost more than $70 million. The Village has entered “kind of a golden era,” he said recently.

A sexual abuse survivor herself, Ms. Bragg realized her worst nightmare had come true. Suddenly so many troubles in her daughter’s life made sense. The recurring nightmares. The night she decided not to kill herself so her sisters wouldn’t find her dead. The hours of counseling and medical treatments. Unable to wait any longer to hear from church leaders, Ms. Bragg asked for a meeting with them. The first opportunity, the church said, would be several weeks away, three months after the family reported the incident.

At the meeting, none of the church’s top three pastors were present. Ms. Bragg and her husband brought a list of 15 questions, asking about church policies and the camp. They received no clear answers.

Ms. Bragg raised the possibility that the perpetrator could have been someone from the Village. That was impossible, she recalled being told by Doug Stanley, a senior director at the church, because leaders followed the church’s moral code, enshrined in the membership covenant.

She turned to her husband as they walked out. “Thank God” for the police detective assigned to the case, she said. “If we were relying on our church to give us information, we’d be leaving empty-handed.”

On its website, the Village currently cites its work with MinistrySafe as evidence that the church is “a safe place for children and victims.” . . . . Unknown to Ms. Bragg, Ms. Norris and her husband are attorneys, and they have an associated legal practice to manage crises and minimize risk for clients. MinistrySafe’s website offers legal consultation, and those services are provided through Ms. Norris’ law firm, Love & Norris.

MinistrySafe may address legal risks for churches, but it does not help promote greater transparency as part of its response to abuse, said David Pittman, a survivor.  “Christians want to believe that everything the church does for them is for their safety and salvation,” he said. “That simply isn’t true, not right now.”

“What we encountered Wednesday was a church that has made a conscious choice to protect itself rather than reflect the Jesus it claims to follow,” she wrote to the pastor of her church campus in Southlake.  “It’s a terribly sad joke,” she went on. “We followed the rules. We followed the bylaws.

The Southern Baptist Convention has no explicit procedure or enforcement mechanism to respond to an abuse allegation when it arises in one of the denomination’s churches, each of which is autonomous. The S.B.C. has resisted calls for reforms for years, but addressing the issue of sexual abuse will be a major focus this week at the convention’s annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala. All Ms. Bragg said she wanted was a church home that will care for her family. Evangelicals in Dallas are enamored with the Village, with Mr. Chandler, and all the church represents, she said recently. She started to cry.

“It is your word against these people,” she said. “Where could we come in and say, ‘This is what we have experienced,’ and have them actually honor that?”

Sadly, churches and church institutions are often NOT safe places for children and youths.

Monday Morning Male Beauty

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. 

More Sunday Male Beauty

Trump, the "Lying Press" and the Nazis

As noted many times on this blog, history has many lessons it can teach us.  Most importantly, it can warn us of dangerous trends and individuals, provided we are willing to listen and not blinded by our own closed mindedness, prejudices, and often intellectual laziness.  A professor of modern German history and European History at the University of Louisiana has a piece in Salon that focuses on Donald Trump's endless lies and, more frighteningly, his attacks of the press as he pushes an authoritarian agenda, seeks to diminish American institutions and marginalize and demonize anyone who opposes him or simply reports the truth.  The parallels with Hitler's Nazi Germany are disturbing although one historian friend views Trump more as a Mussolini as opposed to a Hitler.  Let's hope that view proves correct.  Meanwhile, emboldened by Trump's rhetoric and lies, The Independent reports:

In Detroit, an armed white supremacist group called the National Socialist Movement (NSM) descended on the annual Motor City Pride Festival, where they held placards, gave Nazi salutes and displayed armbands with swastikas.

The caption of this post comes from the Salon piece which is a must read.  Here are article highlights:  

At an election rally in Cleveland in October 2016, two supporters of Donald Trump were captured on video shouting, “Lügenpresse!” What was going on? Why would people who are looking to Trump to “Make America Great Again,” be shouting a German word at one of his events? And what did it mean? The “lying press” — an idea at the heart not only of Trump’s campaign and presidency, but of his entire worldview.

The news media, Trump complains, treats him unfairly. It does not report all the positive news about his campaign and then his presidency. Instead, he insists, it lies to the public, publishing what he calls “fake news.”

Within the confines of Trump’s community of supporters, stories critical of Trump are seen as lies, as phony left-wing propaganda. They’re not to be believed. As it turns out, the use of the term Lügenpresse happens to be quite illuminating. It sheds light on a connection between Trump’s political approach and that of Hitler in the 1930s, when one also heard that word used quite often.

The term Lügenpresse has its origins in Germany during the First World War. Initially intended to counter allied propaganda campaigns (a good deal of which we now know to have actually been accurate) the Nazis used it to attack hostile media.

As with so much of Nazi propaganda, the description of an opposition press based on lies was a classic case of projection. Hitler based his whole approach to politics on lies—something he made no secret of, having described his strategy of the “Big Lie” in his memoir, "Mein Kampf." Hitler lied to officials about his party’s use of violence, he lied about his own past, he lied to foreign leaders about his intentions, and, of course, his whole understanding of the world was based on the lie of a global Jewish conspiracy. Truth would never get in the way of Hitler’s goals.

Trump is also a man who has never let the truth get in the way of what he wants to say and who projects his own dishonest nature onto others. And like Hitler, he’s made no secret of the fact that he lies — bragging to a group of Republican donors that he simply made up numbers to argue about trade policy with the Canadian prime minister.

Trump launched his political career, in fact, on a lie: the story that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and was also possibly a Muslim. And since assuming the presidency his dishonesty has reached breathtaking proportions. In his first 828 days in office, Trump has delivered 10,111 false or misleading claims according to the fact-checkers at the Washington Post. He needed 601 days to reach 5,000, but only 226 to make it to 10,000 — a feat that required an eye-popping average of 23 lies per day. And the topics about which he lies span the spectrum.

And regardless of how often and how definitively they’ve been revealed as lies, he continues to repeat them, over and over.

Once in power, Hitler continued his campaign against the Lùgenpresse. On the one hand, he had the newspapers of his main political opposition — the Communists and Socialists — forcibly shut down. In doing so, the police arrested many of the editors and sent them to concentration camps. . . .  the Nazis often took over the facilities and equipment in order to publish their own papers, and with them, their own version of reality.

Early on this involved an effort to counter foreign papers that reported on the violence and persecution already taking place under the new Hitler government. The regime offered instead its own alternative reality, calling such criticisms and stories “atrocity propaganda.”

Though he has not taken such extreme steps yet, Trump has made clear his desire to restrict and ultimately silence critical media sources. One of the more common themes of his Twitter activity involve attacks on various news outlets as “fake.” He repeatedly calls out and attacks journalists for critical reports or for not complimenting him. He’s belittled and denigrated reporters such as Katy Tur, Megyn Kelly and Mika Brzezinski, referred to Don Lemon as “the dumbest man on television,” called CNN a network of liars, and actually ordered one CNN correspondent out of the White House for asking a question he didn’t like.

[T]he Justice Department told Time Warner in November 2017 that it would not receive approval for its planned merger with AT&T unless it sold off CNN, a network that’s been a frequent target of Trump’s ire. The message is clear. If a media company wants fair treatment when it comes to regulations or approval of prospective business deals, it ought to think twice before airing anything critical of [Trump] the President. And this is not the only danger of a government that rejects the truth and peddles in lies.

When a regime camouflages its true actions and intentions in lies and euphemisms, it can provide cover for the most horrifying measures. The Holocaust is a perfect example. Instead of deportations to death camps in German-occupied Poland, the Nazi government spoke of "relocations" and "work camps" in the east. . . . For those who did not want to know the truth of what was really happening to their former neighbors and fellow citizens, they could choose to believe the rhetoric. How many people would want to believe that their own government was systematically murdering millions of unarmed men, women and children in their name? It was much easier on their conscience to choose a more palatable reality and therefore that much easier to justify doing nothing to stop it.

At its heart, the use of "fake news" by the Trump Administration is illiberal, anti-democratic, and in fact, authoritarian. Dismissal of critical news as “fake” implies that criticism of the president is illegitimate, inappropriate and even unpatriotic. It serves to confuse. . . . . Trump’s attempts to obliterate reasonable understanding of truth give rise to such confusion and hesitation. And hesitation allows him time to consolidate his power.

Assaults on the truth also serve to divide. On one side they pit those who choose to believe the president and therefore do not accept the reality of any news outlets critical of him. On the other side are those who understand the role of journalism in a democracy and can discern true stories from false. Those within the boundaries of the Trump media world see those fake news" purveyors — and their consumers — as hindering the president and actively working against him. They are, as Donald Trump himself so shockingly asserted in February of 2017, “the enemy of the American people.” Should anyone be surprised then when a man calls into CNN to deliver racist diatribes and threatens to “gun you all down?” Or that someone would actually deliver on such threats? Should anyone have been surprised when a gunman opened fire in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, in June 2018?

The point at which politics shifts from truth to lies, from opponents to enemies, is the point at which democracy dies.

Sunday Morning Male Beauty

Proton Therapy Treatment Update

Treatment room similar to those at HUPTI.

I have now completed 37 of the 45 treatment sessions at the Hampton Proton Therapy Institute and can report that so far, things are going well and the side effects of the treatment remain manageable and outwardly, one would never know I am undergoing treatment.  Moreover, with early morning treatments, there has been little interference with my law practice. 

Since my previous post I have been struck by a couple of things: (1) how many individuals I know who have had prostate cancer and done very well and remained cancer free after treatment, and (2) the number of men NOT getting annual PSA tests and, as a result, leaving themselves vulnerable to going diagnosed until their cancer could be well advanced.  By the time one has obvious signs, less invasive treatments without long lasting negative effects may not be possible. My advise, if your physician is not ordering annual PSA tests is to demand them and, if need be change doctors. 

The other disturbing phenomenon is the failure of Riverside Health Systems and Sentara Healthcare and their captive medical practices to recommend proton therapy to patients. Why?  Because the Hampton Proton Therapy Institute - which cost $225 million to construct - is an independent facility and not part of their systems.  In hospital systems today, it is ALL about keeping the money in the hospital system's facilities and having captive medical practices (such as the urology group I went to) refer patients to in-system treatment providers. It is ALL about the money.  What may be best for the patient is of far lesser concern. Sadly, this is not a new development and has been going on for well over two decades in the Hampton Roads region as Riverside and Sentara have built their respective empires (I once did legal work for a system ultimately acquired by Sentara, so I saw the phenomenon first hand).

The take away?  If you are given a cancer diagnosis (or any other serious diagnosis), YOU have to do your homework and research what treatment options may be the best for your situation. Proton therapy may be an option.  Here in Hampton Roads, traveling to VCU's amazing medical complex in Richmond (where I had hand surgery in 2016), UVA's medical center in Charlottesville, or elsewhere may be the best route to pursue.  It's your body and your life, so be engaged and educate yourself.

Some U.S. Embassies Hoist Rainbow Flags in Defiance of Trump

The Trump/Pence regime has been steadily pushing to make right wing evangelical Christianity the de facto established religion in America.  The religious freedom rights and beliefs of others simply do not matter and, if they offend the self-centered, hate-filled, divisive views of Christofascists, they are subject to being undermined and trampled upon. Trump/Pence trumpets support for "religious freedom," but that freedom only applies to white, far right evangelicals who through policies and Department of Justice initiatives are being placed above the laws that bind the rest of the populace.  Nowhere is this more true than in the area of LGBT rights where Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, both far right "Christians," seek to convince Trump to roll back rights and to dish out slights wherever possible. Part of that agenda this year was banning U.S. embassies from flying rainbow flags during June, which is Pride month.  As the Washington Post reports, a number of embassies are defying the Trump/Pence regime's order.  Here are article excerpts:

Since the State Department began rejecting all embassy requests to hoist rainbow flags outside the mission buildings during LGBTQ Pride Month this year, some U.S. diplomats have been finding ways to defy, or at least get around, the new policy.

The facades of the U.S. missions in Seoul and Chennai, India, are partially hidden behind large rainbow flags, while the embassy in New Delhi is aglow in rainbow colored lights. The website for the embassy in Santiago, Chile, shows a video of the chief diplomat raising a rainbow flag last month for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

The Vienna embassy’s website features a photo of a rainbow flag flying below Old Glory on a mast jutting from the building, a statement by Diplomats for Equality and a story about a professor lecturing on the visibility and growth of LGBT rights.

U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem joined a March for Pride and Tolerance, and several ambassadors have tweeted photos of themselves in local Pride parades or standing outside the embassies surrounded by employees holding up letters spelling PRIDE.

“This is a category one insurrection,” said one diplomat, who like others interviewed about the sentiment over the rejections, which were not made in writing, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.

A practice routinely approved for most of the decade at many embassies now requires top-level approval from the State Department. But this year, as first reported by NBC News, all requests were nixed.

In 2011, the Obama administration directed agencies involved with foreign policy to promote LGBT rights, a striking policy for an agency that, up to the early 1990s, considered homosexuality a security risk and cause for termination. . . . . By 2016, approvals were left up to each ambassador or chief of mission.

That process changed last year, after Mike Pompeo became secretary of state. An evangelical Christian who believes marriage should be defined as between a man and woman, Pompeo has said gay employees will be respected and treated like everyone else. But he has downplayed some symbols of LGBT rights, while introducing several new panels and envoys specializing in religious freedom issues.

The advisory cable that came out last year said diplomats are required to obtain top-level approval from approval from the State Department’s Office of Management to fly a rainbow flag.

Some gay employees in the foreign and civil service say the ban on flying the rainbow flag is just the tip of an iceberg of slights.

“Day by day, a death by a thousand cuts, our rights as lgbt+ Americans are being eroded with the removal of a guidance here, the rewriting of a policy there, or just the quiet disappearance of a web site,” Robyn McCutcheon, a transgender woman who has served in several posts abroad, wrote in her blog “Transgender at State,” lamenting what she has observed throughout the government in the past two years. “It should come as no surprise that this erosion would happen also at the U.S. Department of State.”

“We fly below the radar,” one employee said. “We survive because they don’t realize we’re here.”

Expect things to get even worse as Trump steps up anti-LGBT efforts to maintain the support from evangelicals and ultra-right wing Catholics, all of whom want to take America back to the 1950's, including new Jim Crow laws and gays being forced to hide from sight.