(This is an updated version of a blog entry I posted a few days ago. Some of the comments I received suggested that there were a few points that needed to be added and/or expounded upon in order to best express the point I was attempting to make.)
Among the many “highlights” of Donald Trump’s speech at the GOP Convention in Cleveland was the first ever reference by a Republican standard bearer to LGBTQ Americans . “As your President,” Trump declared, “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” When a smattering of delegates applauded, he said, “As a Republican, it’s so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said.”
Of course Trump was surprised by any positive feedback for that comment. He was standing before one of the largest flash mobs of uber-bigots yet assembled in 21st Century America. At least as many delegates (of whom a significant number were evangelical Christians), cheered as were mystified that anyone would do anything less than huzzah when “sodomites” get their due for their “sins” – even if the comeuppance is being dished out by godless Muslims.
Lest you think I’m being unreasonable toward evangelicals, do a quick search on YouTube for posts on God’s edict in Leviticus that homosexuality is “an abomination” worthy of death. You will find several videos in which pastors and others (including some high profile evangelicals in public office), claim that “God’s will” not only obviates same sex marriage, but justifies measuring every gay person in the U.S. for a chalk outline. One of the first names you’ll run into will be Kevin Swanson, of Arizona. He’s a pastor who is adamant that one of our government’s responsibilities is to start killing gays, but they should first be given a brief period of time to repent in order to avoid execution. Last November, Pastor Swanson hosted a “National Religious Liberties Conference,” in Iowa at which GOP presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal spoke.
You’ll also come across Roger Jimenez, a pastor at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento who, on the morning after the Orlando massacre, said that the only thing he regretted was that the remaining victims who were wounded hadn’t been killed, as well. It was, in his mind, a good thing that there were 49 fewer pedophiles walking the face of the Earth that day. A few clicks down the search results list you’ll bump into Pastor Donnie Romero, of the Steadfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX, who went on TV after the attack to explain why God wanted the Orlando victims slaughtered. And then there was Old Path Baptist Church Pastor Manly Perry, of San Antonio, TX, (tell me that name doesn’t sound like a gay alias?) who goes to great lengths to document how the Bible unequivocally dictates death for gays and lesbians.
Televangelist Pat Robertson was fairly representative of many of the higher profile spokespersons for God, in that he was somewhat less than appalled that 49 “pedophile/sodomites” were dispatched to eternal damnation . Others, like Franklin Graham and Anne Graham Lotz, the son and daughter of legendary evangelist Billy Graham, couldn’t bring themselves to show more than sympathy card empathy toward the living victims or the families of the lost. The only heartfelt regret still others had was that society had strayed so far from “God’s word,” that such divine retribution had to be visited upon us at all. Robertson was bemused by the consternation the conflict between Muslims and Gays must be causing American liberals. His advice to Christian conservatives was to simply sit back and enjoy watching them kill each other off.
To be fair, there isn’t unanimous support among the overly zealous for killing every LGBTQ person in the country. Some just want to relocate them to isolated encampments where, hopefully, their lack of a natural aptitude for procreativity will resolve their existence as a group in a relatively short period of time. That was the idea proposed by Reverend Charles Worley of the Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC.
A similar search on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center on anti-LGBTQ hate groups will turn up equally malignant organizations like the American Family Research Council that seem to have dedicated themselves to eradicating all non-heterosexual persons from everyday social intercourse, either by peaceful or not so peaceful means. And, even though I know these people and their hatefulness don’t represent more than a small fraction of the Christian world, and I also understand that there were Christians who were genuinely devastated by the tragedy and who offered heartfelt support for the Pulse nightclub victims, these voices of hate are allowed to contaminate public discourse without being universally rebuked by other Christians. Mainstream Christians seem almost reticent to repudiate the rantings of the theological outliers. Even worse, notions peddled by the fringe dwellers that would once have been thought to be ridiculous subjects for legislation by the majority of Christians, are more likely to be given serious attention now than ever before.
There have been more than 200 anti-LGBTQ laws introduced in at least 34 state legislatures so far this year. (This is up from 115 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in 31 states in 2015.) The ultimate objective of nearly all of these measures is to legally engineer the denial of basic citizenship rights to the people who comprise the LGBTQ community. HB2, the anti-transgender bathroom bill enacted by North Carolina, is a perfect example of this. While proponents say it prevents predators from crossdressing to gain entry to public ladies’ rooms to assault girls and women, the statute actually does nothing to make women safer or more secure. Interfering with or assaulting women and girls was already illegal in North Carolina (and everywhere else in the U.S.). Nor is there a record of violence by transgender people toward women in any setting. Even North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) admitted that there wasn’t a single incident of a transgender person assaulting a woman or a girl prior to the enactment of the law.
But, since it endangers trans-women to force them to use men’s rooms, the net effect of the law is to make the only reliably safe, legal place a transgender person can use the bathroom is in their own home. And, if that is the case, how far can they venture into society?
Other legislative proposals include returning prayer to public schools, creating legal protections for religiously-based discrimination, eliminating civil marriage (to stop same sex marriage) and giving the clergy the sole power to issue legal marriage licenses. Civil governments would be limited to issuing certificates that acknowledge the existence of a “common law relationship.” Marriage licenses would only be granted once the affianced couple successfully completed a course of religious instruction on the responsibilities of marriage. And the governor of Tennessee recently had to veto a bill that slithered its way through that state’s legislature that would have made the Bible the official book of Tennessee.
Lastly, a February, 2015, poll conducted by Public Policy Polling, of likely Republican primary voters, found that 57% of them were in favor of making Christianity the official religion of the United States.
So what do all of these things mean? They suggest that there is a significant contingent of evangelical Christians (albeit, again, a minority of the total number of Christians in the country) who have abandoned our Founding Fathers’ belief that religion and government should be two, separate spheres of influence in the world. To these modern evangelicals, practicing their faith means codifying their values into civil law and excising from our cultural viscera any ideas and influences that run counter to their thinking. To these individuals, it is not enough that they live according to the tenets of their dogma, they must live in a country that conforms to those lights, as well.
Does any of this sound familiar? Does it remind you of any other group of religious radicals elsewhere in the world? Does the name Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, otherwise known as ISIS, spring to mind? Certainly they don’t both share the same bloodthirsty tactics to achieve their goals. But, as I have shown, that may have as much to do with the cultural norms of the societies in which each group lives, more than with the sensibilities of the zealots themselves. In other words, if they could get away with it without paying a penalty, there would be some who would take it upon themselves to carry out “God’s will,” against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in this country.
(I don’t for a moment suggest that the gut-rotting animus felt by many evangelicals toward LGBTQ Americans is case-closed proof that they are as virulent as ISIS in their desires to make the nation into a born again theocracy. But I am saying that the country we would become if they get their way bears far less of a resemblance, in terms of acceptance of diversity and open discourse on public policy, to the United States of America than it does to the Islamic State in the Levant.)
Bottom line: the Muslim world may have ISIS, but we in America have our own odious extremists looking to create a totalitarian, theocratic state within our borders. I call them ESUS, the Evangelical State in the United States.
So, when Trump says he wants to save those of us in the LGBTQ community from the horrors of ISIS, I say, thank you, but what we really need is an ally in the battle against ESUS here at home. And, Mr. Trump, that’s obviously not you.