A slew of bills are rollg back recently won eedoms for gay people. Is Ameri ready to fight for LGBTQ+ rights all over aga?
Contents:
- THE G.O.P. TRI TO BUILD A GAY GHETTO
- AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
- WHY ARE CONSERVATIV SO FREAKED OUT BY GAYS?
- WHY DO REPUBLINS HATE GAY PEOPLE
THE G.O.P. TRI TO BUILD A GAY GHETTO
Conservativ are lnchg a broad attack on gay rights and gay culture. * do conservatives hate gays *
Notably, the Republin shift on gay rights took off durg arguably the most tense recent perd of partisan nflict on the issue: the stggle over same-sex marriage the Gee W.
As the overall cultural environment beme more liberal thanks to s of LGBTQ activism, gays and lbians around the untry felt more fortable g out of the closet. In 2022, the journal Public Opn Quarterly published an analysis by five scholars examg data on trans people and trans issu the same way that Baldassarri and Park studied gay issu. Today, the right has gone on offense agast not only trans inty but LGBTQ cln more broadly, as seen polici like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law or attacks on Kohl’s for sellg a onie wh a Pri flag on .
AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
* do conservatives hate gays *
“15 years ago, the average Amerin might associate gay pri events wh a para the Village, not their employer, their church, and the State Department flyg the rabow flag. At the March Conservative Polil Actn Conference (CPAC) DC, arguably the leadg nservative movement event of the year, proment anti-gay mentator Michael Knowl proclaimed that “transgenrism mt be eradited” — to staed applse. Brtay Newman for The New York TimThis past weekend, the Republin Party Texas voted on an outrageo platform that not only ni the rults of the 2020 printial electn, but also rejects gay marriage and seeks to “protect” mors until they turn 17 agast “predatory sexual behavrs, ” such as drag queens readg stori aloud to queens are predators, trans women are a threat and gay marriage is a vlatn of the “natural orr”: This is all part of the wing and re-energized attack by Republins on L.
Hodg guaranteeg a right to same-sex lg was herald as a major civil rights victory by s proponents, but many opponents of gay rights saw as a lost battle a war, not the loss of the war. For them, gay marriage is too big a velopment to simply Prager, wrg Natnal Review, argued that the lg pleted “the secularizatn of Ameri” and sealed “the end of Ameri as the Founrs envisned .
Muny om “vlence and opprsn, ” urtg openly gay donors like Peter Thiel and later referrg to gay marriage as settled law, he would go on to take unprecented steps “to unrme and elimate rights protectg L. People, ” as Alphonso David, then the print of the Human Rights Campaign, put Tmp’s exhstive list of transgrsns agast gay people were his admistratn’s attempts to lerally erase them by tryg to block new qutns about sexual orientatn om the cens and tryg to fe transgenr people out of existence, proposg to “fe sex as eher male or female, unchangeable, and termed by the genals that a person is born wh, ” acrdg to The New York, there was the Supreme Court self.
WHY ARE CONSERVATIV SO FREAKED OUT BY GAYS?
Shortly after sanctned gay marriage, Mike Huckabee, a printial ndidate 2016, fumed that the “Supreme Court n no more repeal the laws of nature and nature’s God on marriage than n the law of gravy. Durg a 2016 lecture, Barrett seemed to fend the jtic who dissented the gay marriage se and qutned whether was up to the urt to ci issu like which bathroom transgenr people should be allowed to that time, Republin state legislators were troducg a number of bathroom bills, an early step their ph to opprs queer people. ) Now, we are wnsg the evable rult, as Republin legislators win the attacks to queerns this year, we saw Florida pass s “Don’t Say Gay” no mistake, this is all part of a renewed, broad-based attack on gay rights and gay culture, to stanch the rise of young people who are g out.
Republins may not be able to ph people back to the closet, but they n try to re-tablish some stigma to prevent them om g out the first place and build them — — cultural gay ghettos if we do.
WHY DO REPUBLINS HATE GAY PEOPLE
A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law.
The ernor and his supporters have labeled as a “groomer” anyone who believ children n learn LGBTQ+ people exist, argug that simply by talkg about gay relatnships to a child, you are sexualizg that child. ”To be gay, their view, is to be herently sexualized, a threat to nocence a way that straight Amerins are vehemence has ught even veteran LGBTQ+ advot by surprise. He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill.
Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia. ”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program.