NO! Stop Trump/Pence Regime's Attacks on LGBTQ People
May 29, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The Trump/Pence regime came to power with Christian fascist “traditional values” at the core. Those values deny the rights, and humanity, of LGBTQ people. The first 100 days of the regime have seen very ominous moves to impose that Dark Ages agenda.
Ominous Moves in the First 100 Days
Mike Pence told Congress in 2006 that gay marriage was a sign of “societal collapse.” Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, introduced a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. During the campaign, Trump told Fox News that he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court judges who would overturn the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s confirmed appointee to the Supreme Court, was vetted and promoted by Christian fundamentalist theocrats who are hell-bent on banning gay marriage. And Gorsuch has a record of upholding the “right” of not just individuals, but corporations, to invoke their religious beliefs to discriminate.
Besides Pence himself, the Trump/Pence regime has installed viciously anti-gay Christian fascists in key positions of power: Ben Carson, Roger Severino, Rick Perry, and Tom Price. Trump’s former nominee for secretary of the army, Mark Green, has called transgender people “evil.”
And the regime is quietly implementing a whole range of attacks on LGBTQ equality, including overturning existing mechanisms for documenting anti-LGBTQ discrimination in employment. (See “Why Donald Trump’s Second 100 Days Will Be Even Worse For LGBTQ Equality” by Michelangelo Signorile, Huffington Post, May 1, 2017.)
Trump supports the so-called First Amendment Defense Act, which protects people’s “right” to discriminate against LGBTQ people, as long as they have a religious motivation. (As Indiana governor, Mike Pence pushed through a similar bill, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.) Today that means landlords could legally refuse to rent to gays, employers could fire them, etc., by claiming that homosexuality violates their religious beliefs.
Nazi-like Demonization of LGBTQ People
The Trump/Pence regime backed North Carolina laws (“SB-2” and another law the followed with the same basic content) that force trans girls to use boys bathrooms in school, and vice versa. This assault was framed with outrageous lies that claimed ending discrimination against trans youths in schools would unleash male predators to attack girls in school bathrooms—lies that ominously parallel how the Nazis demonized Jewish people.
According to one study, 30 percent of transgender students have a history of at least one suicide attempt. Dehumanizing attacks like SB-2 can only make that situation worse. Beyond that, attacks on trans youth are a cutting edge and wedge for more sweeping attacks—a rallying cry for fascists who insist that granting basic equality to LGBTQ people is “imposing the gay agenda on society.”
Significantly, Trump’s spokespeople insist his support for SB-2 is “a states’ rights issue.” In the history of this country the invocation of “states’ rights” has been a mode through which the most backward, ignorant, prejudiced sections of U.S. society have been mobilized to attack the struggle for equality for Black people. And to justify the oppression of Black people. Parallels are undeniable.
Setting the Stage for Much Worse
The Trump/Pence regime represents ruling class forces for whom driving LGBTQ people back into the closet, and worse, is an indispensable part of “Making America Great Again.” They have unearthed and mobilized the ugliest, darkest creatures in society behind viciously imposing “traditional values.”
All attacks on LGBTQ rights must be met with not just outrage, but defiance. At the same time, people have to come to grips with the reality that the whole direction and momentum of this regime is aimed at violently imposing a repressive society in which, among other horrors, LGBTQ people’s rights and their very humanity will be ground under the bulldozer of “Making America Great Again.” The Trump/Pence regime will move to do that... as long as it remains in power.
Each June, Gay Pride events in cities and towns across the U.S. and around the world celebrate pride and defiance. This year, in the age of Trump and Pence, they take on particular import and significance. Many forces, coming from different perspectives, are calling for protest and resistance. And in some cities, Refuse Fascism is calling for contingents to bring the message: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime!
Connect with those contingents at refusefascism.org.
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