While the Trump Administration has failed spectacularly in “repealing” or “replacing” the Affordable Care Act, has been embroiled in personnel roulette, and can’t shake the dark cloud of allegations of collusion with Russia to influence the election, it may have been easy to miss the relentless anti-LGBTQ agenda that this Administration is pursuing. But it is stunning after his apparent lies during the campaign when he pretended to be the “real friend” of the LGBTQ. There were rumors that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner would moderate his attitude toward LGBTQ. Haha.
Now we face a tapestry of aggressive attempts to marginalize and discriminate against LGBTQ coming from the federal government. It’s not coming from any influence of the Republican Party apparently, if Trump’s failed relationship with Reince Priebus is any indication. Rather, it is coming directly from the evangelical lobbyists and interest groups, likely through two members of his team: Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.
Sessions has long been antagonistic to LGBTQ, voting in favor of a constitutional amendment that would require marriage to be only between a man and a woman and against adding sexual orientation to the protected classes under the federal civil rights laws. Sekulow has made a career of being homophobic. He represented a doctor who refused to hire LGBTQ employees, because, “Not only does homosexuality bring physical and spiritual disease and death, but also it is contagious to others exposed to it.” Through the nonprofit he and his family have led, the American Center for Law and Justice, he fought in the United States to keep the anti-sodomy laws in place and exported extreme anti-gay agendas overseas. These two men are uniquely suited to carry out the hateful agenda now emerging from the Trump morass.
The Trump Administration Forges Ahead on an Anti-LGBTQ Agenda
As I discussed here, a religious license (they call it “liberty”) executive order was leaked early in the Trump presidency. It bode ill for LGBTQ as well as children. The leaked order was not signed, but a narrower version was signed in May. That order is a passageway to discrimination against LGBTQ by believers. As though that were not enough, the Family Research Council has been floating the notion that there will be a further opportunity to discriminate via executive order in the near future, perhaps even this week.
All of this is obviously shameful as proven by the fact that so much of the discussion has been behind closed doors. Before the notorious Family Research Council was crowing about some private deal to harm LGBTQ with the Administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a secret meeting with the Alliance Defending Freedom, another organization dedicated to marginalizing LGBTQ and permitting religious believers to shove them away from employment, government benefits, and the marketplace.
The president personally stepped forward into this arena when he unilaterally “announced” via Twitter that he was banning transgender troops from the military. This twitter campaign did not go as well as he likely planned. While he received Rick Perry’s support, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were blindsided, and many active and retired military officers condemned and defied the announcement here and here.
The pace and ugliness of the Trump Administration’s war on LGBTQ has increased dramatically coincident with the addition of Jay Alan Sekulow, of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, as Trump’s personal lawyer. That should not be surprising given Sekulow’s history. With Sekulow frequently by Trump’s side and speaking for the president, it is not shocking that his anti-gay agenda would worm its way into the Administration and that his presence would coincide with this Administration taking out the cannons to blast the progress LGBTQ have been able to make in this country and elsewhere in the last 20 years.
One of the greatest challenges of this presidency is connecting the dots while the president engages in distraction tactics extraordinaire. Make no mistake about it: this Administration is determined to push LGBTQ back into the closet, or worse. With a friend like Trump, the LGBTQ truly need no enemies.
I think that I don’t need use sophisticated arguments to argue about the value of blood and human sacrifice while put on the front line to fight for the rights. Regardless, is it in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. Blood is blood. Red, the same.
This is supposed to do what…other than show your opinion in favor of LGBTQ xyztahanbggh(*#&#&) I mean at what point did it become an obvious point of contention so much so, that people like you assume that the rest of us are just supposed to like these people? Guess what…we don’t. And the fact of the matter is we didn’t get to vote on the matter of so called equal rights when in fact what has happened is that they get and expect SPECIAL rights and protections. Screw that! It is completely embarrassing that the American people are just supposed to continue the never ending downslide into moral bankruptcy and degradation. That is what these people represent at best. People that celebrate their cause with Gay Parades where they expose their genitals and scrotums with piercings and leather outfits right out in the public eye. Yeah…quality people there. And you….what the hell are you doing writing in favor of this shit. Incredible.
More hysteria from the left, this time from Marci A. Hamilton.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/08/02/transgender-activists-seeking-undermine-parental-rights/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpnNU5UWXhNMlptTVdWaSIsInQiOiI4TjF1ZTd4UDZidFRkbWVqb0d6Q2piemVLXC9OTHBmOEk5bzJFRW9DeVBoSWQ2aGFmK2NYWHQyWUhTdTAzdUJ5ODU0WXdDcEdiZGZYUW1ZeU5HQlJBRWlsanNWMWlnXC9UZXpTS3E1MmNaSklNOTNIYWpoYVwvUlk4WGErOVJnWm1ONyJ9
This is not a legal analysis but rather a politically biased polemical attack on those who have a different set of religious and philosophical beliefs than Ms. Hamilton. JUSTIA ought to be ashamed to publish such a political diatribe such as this and should rather stick to strict legal analyses of case law.
The majority of Americans are totally aware that sodomy and transgenderism are mental illnesses. With these mental disorders come the highest rates of disease, abuse, suicide, drug abuse, etc.
I and millions others can see the parades on video and some on cable TV. I don’t give you any credibilty. A gay Christian. Right. That is an oxymoron. You gays will never relent no matter what. You are mentally off. You can’t use God to excuse your sinful beliefs.
But what I cannot tolerate is that you just expect all the world to like you and like your choices and like that you have poisened our world with sickness like aids and the children are supposed to grow up believing in your cause. You are just wrong in so many ways. It is absurd to be forced to live with such miscreants.