Thursday, February 25, 2016

Trump's success is causing chaos to religious right plans for America


Trump

I am NEVER EVER voting for Donald Trump, but I am not surprised how much chaos he is causing to the plans of the religious right.

According to the Huffington Post:

In a recent article for In These Times, Theo Anderson also took a look at the “great puzzle” of evangelical Christians flocking to Trump, “the Republican candidate most out of step with evangelicals on social issues and the most tin-eared regarding religion.” Anderson concludes that Trump’s success reflects many evangelicals’ desire for an “anti-establishment” candidate as well as what he calls Trump’s performance of a prophetic style of politics practiced by conservative radio preachers who encourage their listeners to stand against the corruptions of the world: “Trump’s speeches and social media output are a stream of falsehoods that speak to the certainty - the ‘higher truth’ - that white Christians, and the nation they love, are being betrayed and targeted.”

 . . . Trump’s success among evangelicals is maddening to some of Cruz’s backers. Glenn Beck, who believes God has called Cruz to save America from the abyss, had urged his viewers to fast on Cruz’s behalf before the Nevada caucuses. Beck says he fears that Trump is the embodiment of “The Bubba Effect,” in which a group of people are pushed over the edge into violence by an overbearing government. Beck says that only the election of Ted Cruz can save America from violent revolution, warning that the country will not be able to recover if it elects a socialist, authoritarian, or member of the status quo.

 . . .  Of course, Trump hasn’t rejected the Religious Right policy agenda. In fact he has fully embraced much of it, pledging to defund Planned Parenthood as long as the organization performs abortions. He has supported Senate Republicans’ vow not to consider any Obama Supreme Court nominee and vowed to nominate Supreme Court justices “as close to Scalia as you could find.” He has called the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling “shocking” and suggested Religious Right activists should trust him to put judges on the Court who would “unpass” that ruling and Roe v. Wade. Those kind of pledges may help Trump win conservative evangelical votes, or at least make evangelicals feel more comfortable voting for him in spite of a political and personal record that contravenes the values they say they hold dear. The campaign for the GOP nomination isn’t over, but Religious Right leaders must be wondering how it is that their Chosen One has faltered and seems to be losing ground to the charlatan Trump. In fact, National Review reported on Wednesday that Religious Right leaders who rallied around Cruz are talking amongst themselves about abandoning him for Rubio if Cruz doesn’t do well on “Super Tuesday” next week.

It was bound to happen. For years, religious right groups and leaders sowed fear and mistrust in their followers. To them, almost every event which didn't go their way was THE crisis which would topple America into the abyss. And their supporters drank it all up.

Now the religious right is finding out the hard way that while it may be easy to create mistrust and fear in people, it's another thing to control it. If you don't give them some security from that mistrust and fear, they will seek it somewhere else.

Of course, this is post is not meant to point the finger at the anti-gay industry and go "Ha! Ha!" It's just a commentary that what they spent years sowing may reap negatively for us all.

'Was 'A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 deliberately homoerotic?' & othr Thur. midday news briefs

Was  'A Nightmare on Elm Street 2'  deliberately homoerotic?

The Nightmare Behind The Gayest Horror Film Ever Made - Today's generation regards the horror movie A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 as subversively homoerotic. But now this article asks was it deliberately so and did it ruin the career of the star, Mark Patton, who at the time was a closeted gay man. Between you and me, I KNEW from several scenes that there was something about this movie. And I hadn't even come to grips with my own homosexuality as of yet.

RNC endorses anti-trans bathroom bills - What a joke of a party. The Republican National Committee can't get a decent candidate to run for president, but it sure can declare war on transgender children.

 GOP Lawmaker Pushes 'Religious Freedom' To Kill Bill Allowing Gays Equal Adoption Rights - Win or lose, I bet this will become the next national step by the anti-gay industry against the lgbt community.

Black LGBT voters on why they back Clinton - I usually stay out of the Hillary vs. Bernie thing cause it's nasty, but hey, I got an ego. And a short interview in this article, not to mention a nice picture of myself included. 

Ex-gay conversion therapy challenged in federal consumer fraud lawsuit - Oh this is gonna end so goooood!

Repost from 2011 - Why I get a nagging feeling every time I hear the phrase 'religious liberty'

I wrote this in 2011 before marriage equality became legal and "religious liberty" was an little more than an obscure catchphrase.  It's kinda sad how it's moved to a clarion call to impose inferiority on the lgbt community:

Those who are my friends know that I am a serious fan of the 1970s detective drama Columbo. The thing I really loved about this show was the fact of how the character of police detective Columbo never considered a murder case completely simple. He never bought into the idea of an "open-and-shut" case if he had a nagging feeling, no matter how insignificant it was.

That nagging feeling is what I get when I hear about  marriage clerks, hotel owners, Catholic adoption agencies, and recently - cake bakers who refuse to serve gay couples. No doubt you have heard about them and will probably hear a lot more as religious right groups trying to hinder marriage equality will canonize these folks as "saints and martyrs" besieged by so-called radical gay activists supposedly trying to force them choose between their livelihood and religious freedom.

In fact they have a term for this sort of thing. They call it "religious liberty."