After years of progrs on gay rights, how did the US bee so anti-LGBTQ+? | US news | The Guardian

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

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.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

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 . “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.

WHY ARE CONSERVATIV SO FREAKED OUT BY GAYS?

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.

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.

WHY DO REPUBLINS HATE GAY PEOPLE

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.