There is a common tendency to misguidedly give Trump the benefit of the doubt on gender and sexual minorities (GSM), as some people think he is simply going to curb the worst excesses of minority activism (like giving 5 year old kids sex changes).
However, this is a dangerous misconception.
Some of the measures being introduced by Republicans are objectively grotesque and hideously aggressive, and far from restoring some kind of balance between religious and gender/sexual interests, actually go way beyond the letter and spirit of what a lot of religions teach about GSM in moral terms, into outright legal and social persecution.
Much of what Trump and his allies are doing are not simply about reaffirming traditional religious teachings on such matters or restricting the most extreme elements of activism, but about completely disenfranchising GSM individuals, including starving them into submission by driving them out of the workplace.
Essentially, if someone is identified as a GSM individual, they will be able to lose their job and in many cases, be unemployable and either starve to death or be unable to pay for their medical insurance.
Trump’s appeals to religious liberty and to curbing the excesses of woke culture are deliberately misleading, as this is going way beyond that, and further and further into overt persecution of GSM individuals.
Trump is three years in, and he seems overwhelmingly likely to win again in 2020, barring a miracle.
It’s important to understand that people are not crying wolf over this, and it’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome.
There is a concerted agenda called ‘Project Blitz.’
Whatever your religious views are, this is not just about religious teachings, it’s about a gradually escalating political and legislative war on these people.
There is nothing in the traditional teachings on GSM in most religions to justify the heavy-handed, ultra-aggressive behaviour that is gradually emerging into the open.
Trump has tested the waters over time.
As a Growther, Trump’s is aligning himself with the usual alliance of business and religious interests whose Malthusian tendencies perceive GSM individuals to be surplus population who interfere with the smooth running of the economy and society and pose an existential threat to the USA.
This is a radically overhyped view that takes existing traditional religious teachings and exaggerates them to the point where legalism and an obsessive preference for the letter of right and wrong over grace and mercy and compassion grossly distorts and perverts the fine balance of traditional Christian teaching.
There is nothing ‘woke’ about recognising the reality of this.
No matter what religion you follow, and whether or not you follow traditional views on GSM matters, what Trump is doing is unbelievably heavy-handed, and is likely to get worse and worse over time.
Trump’s escalating legal hostility towards gender and sexual minority individuals is an unbridled Malthusianist/Growtherist outrage, and it’s NOT simply about curbing the worst excesses of GSM activism, nor is it simply about defending traditional religious teachings.
I repeat:
A lot of what he is doing is grotesquely aggressive and heavy-handed, and does not naturally follow from the more traditional or conservative teachings that are being used as a pretext.
This is not about theological revisionism.
It is not about whether the teachings should be changed, revised, renewed or reformed.
It is about a huge slippery slope towards overt persecution of human beings, and it goes way beyond anything most religions, in traditional form or not, can be reasonably understood as permitting.
Be careful not to dismiss all this as scaremongering.
Trump is not simply defending the historical Christian faith, whether you consider that to be Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, Evangelical, or anything else.
Trump is not simply defending religion.
He is using this as a pretext, and as a Trojan horse.
Again, he is not simply undermining postmodernist woke culture.
He is going way beyond that, into directly targeting and persecuting GSM individuals, and as the current situation escalates, things are only going to get worse before they get better.
IF they get better.
It is important to draw attention to this topic.
That is not revisionism or heresy.
It is a moral necessity.
It is what Jesus would have done.
DISCLAIMER: ALL SERIOUS COMMENTARY PIECES ARE THE PERSONAL VIEWS OF THE WRITER AND ARE NOT NECESSARILY TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS THE OFFICIAL VIEW OF GLOSSY NEWS SATIRE.
Originally published on Medium.