LGBTQ Rights and Right-wing Gay Bashing

[LFC]

Arkansas is poised to enshrine the right of religious zealots in the healthcare field to discriminate against gays. How ... Christian.

Sitting on Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson's desk is legislation that, if signed into law, would allow a vast array of healthcare workers including doctors and pharmacists, hospitals, and even students to deny service to LGBTQ people or anyone else for any reason, including religious or moral, if doing so would violate their conscience.

SB 289, the "Medical Ethics and Diversity Act," is sponsored by Republican state Senator Kim Hammer, a Missionary Baptist preacher and hospice pastor who earlier this year declared war on Democrats after then-President Donald Trump had been impeached.

Should it become law, a physician could refuse to treat a transgender person, a mental health professional could end treatment with a young teenager who just revealed to them he is gay, a pharmacist could refuse to dispense contraceptive medication even if prescribed for non-pregnancy-related illnesses, and a student nurse could refuse to assist with an abortion, even if it were medically necessary to save the life of a woman.
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But that's not all. The legislation is so broad that it allows hospitals and even insurance companies to refuse service for – including refusing to pay for – anything their polices claim violates their conscience. Catholic hospitals for decades have been refusing to allow abortions to be performed, but now an insurance company could refuse to pay for HIV medications, or even PrEP. They could refuse to pay for gender confirmation surgery.

The wrongly-named legislation – it has nothing to do with supporting ethics or diversity – has the support of an anti-LGBTQ hate group, the Alliance Defending Freedom.

The Arkansas Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill, saying if it becomes law “we position ourselves as being not open and welcoming like we've portrayed ourselves to be," the AP reports.

“Driving out doctors, nurses, and other medical providers because of their faith means fewer health care options for patients at a time when our nation's health care system is overstretched and experiencing a dire shortage of providers," ADF attorney Stephanie Nichols said, The Advocate reports.

[Bact PhD]

In survey results that should surprise no one, LGBTQ students have a hard time on-campus at Christian colleges & universities:

The alleged harassment Penales faced isn’t unique. LGBTQ students at Christian colleges face more bullying and harassment and are far more likely to experience isolation, depression and harm than their straight classmates, according to a new survey commissioned by the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, or REAP, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ students at taxpayer-funded religious colleges and universities.

Gender-nonconforming students are particularly at risk, the researchers found: Twenty-two percent reported bullying or harassment, compared to 5 percent of cisgender students. Fourteen percent reported being sexually assaulted, compared to 2 percent of their cisgender peers.

In all, queer students were three times more likely to report depression and anxiety and three times more likely to have seriously considered suicide, according to the report. More than 1 in 10 (12 percent) also reported that their school suggested they receive counseling, suggested or mandated that they undergo “conversion therapy,” revoked their financial aid or scholarships or took other actions against them as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The research was based on a survey of 3,000 full-time students at 134 taxpayer-funded Christian colleges and universities, conducted by the survey company College Pulse between Jan. 28 and Feb. 6.

[LFC]

Mar 22, 2021 22:46:20 GMT Bact PhD said:

In survey results that should surprise no one, LGBTQ students have a hard time on-campus at Christian colleges & universities:

There's not bullying like religious bullying cuz God(tm) is on your side. If there's anything he likes better than libruls' tears it's queers' tears.

[LFC]

I'm going to give the Arkansas governor credit for this one. The easy path as a Republican would be to punish trans kids for political gain. After all it's what the GOP controlled state legislature did. Instead he vetoed. I guess using children who are already struggling for a cheap political stunt was a bridge too far. Nice to see a few of them still have at least a few shreds of morality.

Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas’ Republican governor, has vetoed a bill that would have criminalized affirming health care for trans youth, calling it an example of “vast government overreach.”

The state's majority Republican Senate had voted in favor of HB 1570 last week, 28 votes to 7—making it the first bill to pass in the U.S. outlawing health care access and treatment for trans teenagers. The Arkansas General Assembly can vote to overturn Hutchinson’s veto.

If passed, the bill would prevent young trans people from accessing health care and insurance coverage for gender-affirming care and would have outlawed gender-confirming hormone treatment or surgery to trans minors. It would also have made it a felony for healthcare professionals to perform certain gender transition procedures on people under 18. LGBTQ organizations and civil rights campaigners, as well as leading healthcare bodies, opposed the bill.

At a press conference Monday, Hutchinson explained his veto. “I was told this week the nation is looking to Arkansas because I have on my desk another bill passed by the general assembly that is a product of the cultural war in America. I don’t shy away from the battle when it is necessary and defensible. But the most recent action of the general assembly, while well intended, is off course. And I must veto House Bill 1570.”

Hutchinson continued: “House Bill 1570 would put the state as the definitive oracle of medical care overriding parents, patients, and healthcare experts. While in some instances the state must act to protect life, the state should not presume to jump into the middle of every medical, human, and ethical issue. This would be, and is, a vast government overreach.”

Hutchinson’s veto is somewhat surprising given that he signed Senate Bill 354 into law on March 25, preventing trans girls and women from playing school sports consistent with their gender identity.

[goldenvalley]

The veto isn't surprising. Hutchison probably figures it saves the state money in legal wrangles over the bill. The prohibition in terms of sports participation can be seen as protecting others from transgender people. A prohibition against the medical treatment of a person is a much more difficult thing to defend against in a lawsuit by a person denied the treatment.

[LFC]

I wonder if Hutchinson will run again. He vetoed a trans-bashing bill (right-wing strike 1), then wrote an op-ed defending his position (right-wing strike 2), and had the nerve to publish it in the Washington Post (right-wing strikes 3, 4, & 5).

I vetoed this bill because it creates new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents as they deal with some of the most complex and sensitive matters concerning our youths.

It is undisputed that the number of minors who struggle with gender incongruity or gender dysphoria is extremely small. But they, too, deserve the guiding hand of their parents and the counseling of medical specialists in making the best decisions for their individual needs.

H.B. 1570 puts the state as the definitive oracle of medical care, overriding parents, patients and health-care experts. While in some instances the state must act to protect life, the state should not presume to jump into the middle of every medical, human and ethical issue. This would be — and is — a vast government overreach.

Republicans are all about vast government overreach ... by Republicans.

BTW a quick check shows that Arkansas has no ban on gay conversion therapy for minors. So much about caring about children.

[LFC]

Texass Republicans are pushing a bill that would threaten parents who support their trans child with prosecution and jail time for child abuse. It's not just actual surgery.

Texas Senate Bill 1646 would brand the parents of trans children as “child abusers” if they support their kids. Parents could face jail time and have their children taken away if the bill passes.

Despite overwhelming evidence that supporting a trans kid is better for their mental and physical health, Texas Republicans are willing to sacrifice “personal freedom” for government regulation.

The law would redefine child abuse to include “consenting to or assisting in the administering or supplying of, a puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment” or “performing or consenting to the performance of surgery or another medical procedure on a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment.”

The bill had its first hearing yesterday.

The group Doctors For Change released an open letter to the sponsors of the legislation pointing out that the bill flies in the face of medical research and standards of care.

“The care provided to children and youth with gender dysphoria is tailored to their specific needs by a team of highly trained providers, including pediatricians, mental health specialists, endocrinologists, surgeons, and allies and supporters including parents and guardians,” they wrote. “Each provider plays a role in ensuring the health of the child based on established standards of care and the peer-reviewed medical literature.”

To put this bill into perspective conversion therapy for children, widely trashed by actual psychological organizations as actual abuse, is still legal Texass.

[LFC]

The latest attacks on trans people aren't isolated. This is a coordinated Republican attack on a nearly defenseless group in order to outrage and fire up their base. Bold mine.

The GOP's latest culture war is focused squarely on the nation's transgender community, specifically transgender youth. It isn't a new war, simply a new front in an old war that can be traced back to the famed "bathroom bills" from some years ago that spread across dozens of states. Those bills were introduced in tandem with former President Donald Trump's targeted federal government-led attacks that included the overturning of anti-discrimination statutes protecting trans people and an outright transgender ban in the U.S. military.

Now, in the wake of Trump's humiliating electoral loss, Republicans have accelerated the state-level attacks to a breathtaking level. In just the first three months of 2021, GOP-led state legislatures introduced more bills aimed at transgender people, especially youth, than they did over the entire previous year. There are now more than 80 bills introduced this year alone that, according to Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, "are not addressing any real problem, and they're not being requested by constituents. Rather, this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations attempting to score political points by sowing fear and hate."

I recently spoke with Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of the award-winning book Histories of the Transgender Child, in an interview, and she echoed this claim, saying, "A lot of authoritarian political movements are using trans people as their scapegoats." She called the latest wave of anti-trans legislation "an unprecedented assault in terms of just the magnitude of the bills and the severity of what they propose to do in terms of criminalizing basic access to health care and equal access to education."

[LFC]

With no coherent policies the Republicans continue the culture wars in full force (paywalled). The problem for them is that most of the country doesn't agree with their assaults on trans people, especially children.

Without any real policy agenda, Republicans in Congress have largely seized on various fronts in the culture war to distract from Biden’s successes. And GOPers at the state level are doing the same, with a new heightened focus on an element of their socially conservative base’s traditional values: Going after the LGBT community.

Lately, that’s meant a fresh wave of anti-trans rights bills.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 30 state legislatures have introduced 115 bills collectively that seek to curb the rights of transgender people. I wrote a few weeks ago about one of those bills in Arkansas where the state’s Republican governor vetoed legislation that would ban gender transition treatment and therapy, which could include hormones and surgery, for anyone under the age of 18. Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) argued during his veto that the bill would allow for extreme legislative interference with physicians and parents. The Republican-controlled state legislature overturned the veto and passed it anyway.

The anti-trans bills range in targeting everything from access to medical care to bathroom use to the sports arena. But the culture war du jour for the GOP actually doesn’t have much support from the majority of the American public. A new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll found that two-thirds of Americans, across the political spectrum and across age groups, are not in support of new laws that limit transgender rights.

More specifically, 70 percent of those polled who identified as Republicans said they opposed laws that would prohibit minors from receiving gender-affirming care, a description similar to what passed in Arkansas. Democrats were nearly the same, with 69 percent opposed to that type of legislation.

It’s similar in the sports realm, too. Only 28 percent of those polled indicated support for bills that would ban transgender youth from playing on sports teams that align with their gender. According to the poll two-thirds of Americans, across the political spectrum, don’t support such efforts. And it’s even higher for those polled who indicated they knew a transgender person.

[Rue Bella]

Mar 23, 2021 13:08:24 GMT LFC said:

Mar 22, 2021 22:46:20 GMT Bact PhD said:

In survey results that should surprise no one, LGBTQ students have a hard time on-campus at Christian colleges & universities:

There's not bullying like religious bullying cuz God(tm) is on your side. If there's anything he likes better than libruls' tears it's queers' tears.

LFC, so glad you didn't lost your saltiness in the TRS move. 

[LFC]

Apr 19, 2021 18:48:24 GMT Rue Bella said:

Mar 23, 2021 13:08:24 GMT LFC said:

There's not bullying like religious bullying cuz God(tm) is on your side. If there's anything he likes better than libruls' tears it's queers' tears.

LFC, so glad you didn't lost your saltiness in the TRS move. 

And I wasn't even drinking when I wrote that!

[Bact PhD]

How Will the trans-bashers in CA handle this latest development?

www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-04-23/caitlyn-jenner-governor-recall

At a time when transgender rights have become the new culture war in American politics, Republican Olympian-turned-celebrity Caitlyn Jenner announced a historic campaign Friday to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election.

“As Californias, we face a now-or-never opportunity to fundamentally fix our state before its too late,” Jenner, 71, wrote on Twitter. “Taking on entrenched Sacramento politicians and the special interests that fund them requires a fighter who isn’t afraid to do what is right. I am a proven winner and the only outsider who can put an end to Gavin Newsom’s disastrous time as governor.”

The move comes as vocal segments of her party are pushing dozens of bills to curtail rights for transgender people across the nation.

[LFC]

Apr 23, 2021 14:46:43 GMT Bact PhD said:

How Will the trans-bashers in CA handle this latest development?

I'm repulsed by this. Why does a 70-something ex-athlete with no real background in law, politics, or management think they're qualified to run the government of the state with the largest population and largest economy in the nation? Just because they're famous? That kind of chutzpah takes real balls. (Sorry, not sorry. )

[goldenvalley]

Apr 23, 2021 15:42:29 GMT LFC said:

Apr 23, 2021 14:46:43 GMT Bact PhD said:

How Will the trans-bashers in CA handle this latest development?

I'm repulsed by this. Why does a 70-something ex-athlete with no real background in law, politics, or management think they're qualified to run the government of the state with the largest population and largest economy in the nation? Just because they're famous? That kind of chutzpah takes real balls. (Sorry, not sorry. )

Well California is the state that elected Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger governor.  Reagan, at least had been president of the Screen Actors Guild (a union!).  Arnold...nothing there but in a strange way some of his ideas like an independent citizens redistricting commission were good ideas.   Jenner...has voted in about 9 elections in the last 20 years so he clearly has a deep interest in the running of the state.  Attention hound...if that's a qualification, is all she's got.  

In the recall election that gave us Arnold, there were over 100 candidates on the ballot to replace the sitting governor if the recall was successful. There is no primary election process to winnow down the number of candidates. The person who wins the most vote gets to be governor.  Schwarzenegger won about 48%, not a majority.  But it takes 50% + 1 for a recall to happen.  Stupid, stupid, stupid system.

[LFC]

I knew Tucker Carlson was a asshole, of course, but I didn't realize he had such a long history of gay bashing. In one incident he and another man literally bashed somebody likely because he made a pass at him. This article speculates that Tucker might have a bit of Larry Craig syndrome, causing him to overcompensate.

Last week, social media lit up with screen grabs of Tucker Carlson's yearbook entry from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1991, which was confirmed by the college, listing the "Dan White Society" as a club to which Carlson stated he belonged.

It was a grotesque, homophobic and violent display, as Dan White was the anti-gay killer of gay civil rights leader and San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Mascone, both of whom White assassinated in 1978 at City Hall in a horrendous act of gun violence and a homophobic hate crime.

There is no Dan White Society, at least not any that any other student at Trinity listed as having been a member. Carlson also listed membership in the "Jesse Helms Foundation," referring to the late Republican senator from North Carolina who led a crusade against queer people in the 80s and 90s, exploiting fear and whipping up hate as AIDS came into the forefront of American society, preventing LGBTQ people from attaining protections amid rampant discrimination. The fact-checking site Snopes found no other reference in the yearbook to a "Jesse Helms Foundation" either.

Jeet Heer did an instructive deep dive last week that is worth a read, looking at why a 22-year-old college student in 1991 would be paying tribute to a homophobic hate crime over a decade earlier, noting the intense homophobia on the right at that time.

Indeed, Carlson seems to have been obsessed with homosexuality going way back, having co-written a letter in the college paper in 1990 stating that homosexuality is "unnatural and unhealthy," responding to an article in the paper that had detailed homophobia at Trinity College.

I've written in the past about stories that surfaced in which Carlson expressed revulsion at homosexuality — and one incident in which he reveled in a violent response.

In 2007 Carlson told Dan Abrams on MSNBC that he smashed a man's head "against the stall" in a public rest room, claiming the man had "bothered" him, though not at first saying he was responding to a sexual advance — just that he was "bothered." In hindsight, it was stated with the zeal we've come to learn is a mark of heterosexual men who are insecure about their own masculinity and sometimes their own sexuality.

The discussion had been focused on Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho — a vocal homophobe, and a senator who voted consistently anti-gay — who was arrested for soliciting sex at an airport rest room from a male undercover cop in Minneapolis that year. And Carlson, with bravado, decided to go off on this tangent, heralding the gay-bashing he'd once committed. It seemed to be a way of normalizing a violent response by straight men to homosexuality to send a threat to gay men.

Even if it was a sexual advance that Carlson experienced — Carlson claimed the following day, in an email he sent out to the press after a lot of online criticism, that he was "assaulted" by the man — his action still was not an act of self-defense: Carlson said he left the rest room after the man had "bothered" him, and and then went back with a friend, explaining that they then "grabbed" the man and "hit him against the stall with his head." (Interestingly, after Abrams challenged Carlson's action, Carlson went on to say, in what appeared to be a strange joke, "Let me be clear, I am not gay.")

In 2019, Media Matters released audio clips of Carlson making racist and homophobic comments, including using an anti-gay slur, telling shock jock host Bubba the Love Sponge in 2006, "I like you too...but I actually mean it in a completely f----t way."

Now that I think about it he does have a certain ... vibe. I mean that bow tie, am I right?

[LFC]

This Tennessee gay basher doesn't even have the balls to admit to what he's doing. Spineless. If you're going to attack somebody just for being gay, probably for Jeebus, then f***ing own up to it you coward.

A Tennessee Republican lawmaker on Monday blocked a resolution that had passed unanimously in the state senate honoring country music star T.J. Osborne of the Brothers Osborne. In February Osborne came out, becoming the first openly-gay country music artist signed to a major country music label.

"We have some concerns," Rep. Jeremy Faison told his fellow lawmakers on the House floor Tuesday as he blocked the bill.

When pressed, he claimed the resolution had not gone through committee. One lawmaker noted the House had already voted on several bills today that had not gone through committee, and neither Faison nor anyone else had blocked them.

Nevertheless, Faison used his status as the Chair of the House Republican Caucus to block the resolution, sending it to committee.

As the Tennessee Holler notes (video below), that committee is closed for the year, which means that Faison killed the resolution.

Rep. Faison has a long anti-LGBTQ history, but perhaps he is best known nationally for claiming in 2012, during a flood of LGBTQ youth suicides caused by bullying that LGBTQ children and teens don't die by suicide because of bullying.

Instead, Faison claimed, they died by suicide because their parents did not instill "proper principles."

[LFC]

Karma came for a group of gay bashers real quick.

On Tuesday, Newsweek flagged a viral story making the rounds on Twitter and TikTok, in which instant karma befell three boaters who harassed a family sailing with a gay pride flag on Moses Lake, Washington.

"Twitter user @retro_ushi_, who identifies as trans and queer, told the story on social media and said: 'These people harassed my family because we were flying gay pride flags in Moses Lake, Washington, by racing around us and shouting gay slurs. Then, their boat literally blew up! #KarmaIsReal," reported Seren Morris. "They added: 'And just ONE more tidbit to really drive the karma in there. The driver literally s*** his pants and everyone saw when his shorts fell off in the water.'"

Ultimately, the offending boaters were rescued, and police doused the fire after the vessel had been charred black. According to @retro_ushi, the most likely cause of the fire was that "they were driving around us so roughly, they either damaged their carburetor or took in water and stalled. Then fumes built up and when they tried to speed away, the fumes ignited."

[pnwguy]

Jun 1, 2021 19:53:35 GMT LFC said:

Karma came for a group of gay bashers real quick.

On Tuesday, Newsweek flagged a viral story making the rounds on Twitter and TikTok, in which instant karma befell three boaters who harassed a family sailing with a gay pride flag on Moses Lake, Washington.

"Twitter user @retro_ushi_, who identifies as trans and queer, told the story on social media and said: 'These people harassed my family because we were flying gay pride flags in Moses Lake, Washington, by racing around us and shouting gay slurs. Then, their boat literally blew up! #KarmaIsReal," reported Seren Morris. "They added: 'And just ONE more tidbit to really drive the karma in there. The driver literally s*** his pants and everyone saw when his shorts fell off in the water.'"

Ultimately, the offending boaters were rescued, and police doused the fire after the vessel had been charred black. According to @retro_ushi, the most likely cause of the fire was that "they were driving around us so roughly, they either damaged their carburetor or took in water and stalled. Then fumes built up and when they tried to speed away, the fumes ignited."

A thousand likes on that one.  I wish karma wasn't always so tardy.

[LFC]

This happened only about 10 miles from me. I'm a bit surprised and more than a little heartened. During the election Trump signs were sadly common around here. If I'm driving around the area I'm still likely to see a few. It increases my faith in the younger generations who seem consistently more decent than my generation. Too many people in my generation suck.

Carly Levy and Courtney Steiner had their prom outfits all planned out: Carly would wear a navy blue dress, Courtney would wear a pink dress. And they'd get each other wrist corsages to bring the outfits together.

"I got her flowers to match my pink gown and she got me flowers too that matched her navy blue gown," said Courtney.

The two seniors have been dating for a few months, and there was no question they would go to prom together. The only question was would they become Pennridge High School's first same-sex couple to be named prom queens.

"I think it started with our friend Delaney," said Courtney. "She came up to me and was like, 'Can I nominate you and Carly for prom queen?' I was like, 'Yeah, why not!'"

As students started spreading the word, the couple found themselves on the ballot, which was changed to be more inclusive after a friend brought it up.

"She pushed to change the term from prom king and queen to prom royalty," said Courtney.

Carly was surprised to even make it on the ballot.

"I wasn't sure if Pennridge was going to allow it," she said, "because this region and this county can lean a little away from allowing that kind of thing to happen. But I was so excited when I found out that it was."

She was even more excited last Friday when it was announced that the two seniors had won the title of prom queens.

[LFC]

The Christianist Republican Party is just dripping gushing with hate.

There have been more than 250 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in 33 state legislatures this year across America, more than 120 have focused on restricting trans rights, particularly in healthcare and access to sports. 23 anti-LGBTQ bills have been passed into law. Anti-trans bills continue to progress in Wisconsin and Louisiana. Yesterday, the ACLU announced the first lawsuit against the legislation, focused on Arkansas.

“What happened was a coordinated attack on the most vulnerable among us: transgender youth,” Barbara Simon, head of news and campaigns at GLAAD, told The Daily Beast of this legislative session. “Lawmakers used misinformation to push and pass bills that put transgender children at risk, threatened their private medical care and restricted their access to play, a key way every child learns. All children benefit when all feel welcome and all can participate.

“GLAAD will continue to point to the truth: that every major medical organization supports affirming care for trans youth and their participation in sports.”

“Despite losing the public arguments on bathroom bills and trans people in the military, Republicans believe they've finally found the perfect anti-trans vehicle for the ballot box in 2022: attacking trans children,” transgender activist Charlotte Clymer told The Daily Beast. “Despite opposition from every major medical authority, the NCAA, prominent cis women athletes like Megan Rapinoe and Billie Jean King, and every reasonable adult who can clearly see there's no evidence to support their claims, Republican leaders are pressing on in their efforts to demonize trans kids. For them, it's all about cynically exploiting bigotry and fear of trans children to get a few more votes. And they will ultimately fail in this effort but not before trans children are hurt in the process.”

“State legislatures across the country are actively attacking our progress in the LGBTQ community—with their latest target being transgender people and youth,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), the first out LGBTQ politician elected to Congress, told The Daily Beast. “We have come too far to let the supporters of discrimination and opponents of equality win. We must pass the Equality Act in the Senate, and I will continue doing everything I can to protect the health and safety of the transgender community, so we can have a future where all Americans have the freedom of full equality.”

However, with dozens of bills still in the works and at least seven states with laws now on the books targeting transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming youth—as well as doctors and the cisgender straight parents who are raising them—Republicans from Maine to Florida and from Alabama to Alaska have turned 2021 into a year of hell for the transgender community. (To keep track of developments nationally, interested readers can access Legiscan, Transathlete, and Freedom for All Americans.)

[LFC]

Vox covers Hungary's attacks on LGBTQ people, something that Orban seems to like to do whenever he needs to shore up his popularity. It's a lot easier to demonize and attack a small minority than to actually govern effectively.

During last week’s European championship soccer match between Germany and Hungary, the rainbow was everywhere on the German side. The German goalie wore a rainbow armband; the team’s fans donned rainbow wigs and waved rainbow flags.

All of this was directed at the opposing side: The Germans were protesting a new Hungarian law banning LGBTQ sex education and media directed at minors — a measure that has sparked outrage in Europe and elsewhere against Hungary.

While this may look like a PR mess for Hungary’s ruling right-wing Fidesz party, it’s in keeping with the right-wing populist playbook that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has turned to over and over again to shore up his authoritarian rule. In the past few years, demonizing queer and trans identities has become a central part of Orbán’s campaign for maintaining his grip on power.

The criticism from Europe, if anything, bolsters the strategy. It allows the Hungarian government to tout its core ideological argument: that it is the Hungarian Christian family’s champion against a godless, globalist European Union.

“Hungary asserts its role as ‘defender of traditional values’ while mostly West European states get to claim moral superiority with no one paying any price for it,” says Cas Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia who studies far-right politics.

The new anti-LGBTQ rules — which were tacked on at the last minute to a bill increasing penalties for sex crimes against children — are part of a broader slate of legal attacks on the queer community that strengthen Orbán’s regime, the only non-democratic government in the European Union.

Demagoguery is at the heart of the Fidesz political strategy. A series of boogeymen — Muslim migrants, Jewish billionaire George Soros, and now LGBTQ activists — have been used to rally Orbán’s base to the ballot box and justify the expansion of authoritarian state powers.

In this, Orbán is not alone. The demonization of out-groups is a key ingredient in the right-wing authoritarian recipe, one used by factions the world over to win power and undermine democracy once they’ve acquired it. It’s a pattern Americans should pay attention to, especially during the current moment of right-wing panic about the purported corruption of our youth.

Oh, yeah. From a link in the Vox article Hungary is now considered by some (many?) to be the only non-democratic nation in the EU.

Hungary has experienced "the most precipitous" democratic decline ever tracked by the US-based rights watchdog Freedom House in their "Nations in Transit" report, the think tank said on Wednesday.

The government helmed by conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban has "dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions."

"After centralizing power, tilting the electoral playing field, taking over much of the media, and harassing critical civil society organizations since 2010, Orban moved during 2019 to consolidate control over new areas of public life, including education and the arts," Freedom House said in the latest edition of their report.

The country has now crossed the line from a democracy to a "transitional/hybrid regime," the watchdog said. Such regimes have fragile democratic institutions and citizens face "substantial challenges" to their rights and liberties.

Responding to the report, the Budapest government alleged Freedom House was linked with the Hungarian billionaire George Soros, whom the Orban regime regularly describes as a malicious force working against Hungary.

"With their Soros funding they've declined, becoming the fist of the party that is the Soros network," government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on Twitter. "Anyone who doesn't conform to their liberal view, gets downgraded."

[LFC]

California wants nothing to do with the red states that use LGBTQ bashing as a political technique.

California will ban state-funded travel to five new states over their "discriminatory" LGBTQ laws, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday, citing the importance of "aligning our dollars with our values."
The new travel restrictions target Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia over what the attorney general's office called "dangerous" new laws that "directly work to ban transgender youth from playing sports, block access to life-saving care, or otherwise limit the rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community."
"It's unfortunate that some politicians would rather demonize trans youth than focus on solving real issues like tackling gun violence, beating back this pandemic and rebuilding our economy," Bonta said at a news conference Monday.

The additional travel restrictions mean that California has now banned state-funded travel to 17 states under Assembly Bill 1887. The bill "prohibits the state from requiring employees to travel to a state subject to AB 1887's travel prohibition," as well as "prohibits California from approving a request for state-funded or state-sponsored travel to such a state," according to the state attorney general's office. It does not apply to personal travel.

The banned states, Bonta told reporters Monday, "are working to prevent transgender women and girls from participating in school sports, consistent with their gender identity."

"It's all part of a movement to limit the rights of LGBTQ Americans as a movement," he said.

[RichTBikkies]

Jun 29, 2021 15:38:56 GMT LFC said:

California wants nothing to do with the red states that use LGBTQ bashing as a political technique.

California will ban state-funded travel to five new states over their "discriminatory" LGBTQ laws, state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday, citing the importance of "aligning our dollars with our values."all part of a movement to limit the rights of LGBTQ Americans as a movement," he said.

Hm. Is your Union breaking up as ours seems to be?

[LFC]

They lost on suppressing women. They lost on suppressing blacks. They lost on suppressing gays. Now, in their never ending hunt for a group of people to demonize and harass, the conservatives are going even more full tilt after trans people. They don't care about reality and they sure as hell don't care about the children, just as they didn't care when they pushed the mental torture technique known as "conversion therapy."

Florida has HB 211. Georgia has HB 401. North Carolina has HB 514, and Tennessee has SB 657.

All of these bills—either introduced or soon to make their way through Republican-controlled state legislatures—seek to prohibit health care for trans minors and criminalize any health-care practitioners who provide it, including the prescribing of puberty blockers which trans youth advocates say can be vital for trans teens’ well-being.

In Tennessee, violations of the act are defined as “child abuse.” There are similar bills up for consideration in Arizona, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Underscored in many of the health-care bills is the notion that “the minor’s genetic sex at birth” is the gender identity that the state recognizes as legitimate.

West Virginia’s HB 2171, the “Vulnerable Child Protection Act,” prohibits “certain medical treatments and procedures upon a minor, including an emancipated minor, for the purpose of attempting to change or affirm the minor’s perception of the minor’s sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the minor’s genetic sex at birth and making such medical treatments and procedures a felony unless specific exceptions.”

The Daily Beast reached out to a number of lawmakers proposing the bills to ask what underpinned their reasoning for doing so. Only one responded.

“A child should be 18 years old before they make a permanent, life-altering medical decision,” Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini (District 32) said. He did not respond to questions about how young trans people might be supported in their health-care decisions, or why the bill he had proposed would criminalize health-care providers.

Hey, asshole. Not allowing puberty blocker makes a "permanent, life-altering medical decision" for children who need more time and maturity to figure things out. What a Republican hypocrite ... but I repeat myself.

[LFC]

FFS is it too much to ask that officers in the military act like f***ing adults? Apparently so.

For nearly 14 years, Tech. Sgt. Kristin M. Kingrey has served her country as a member of the West Virginia Air National Guard. Now Kingrey, a 37-year-old lesbian, is suing the Army and Air Force, claiming a senior male leader said she should grow her hair, wear makeup, “and ultimately appear more feminine,” or prepare to face the negative professional consequences.

Kingrey told The Daily Beast that after the remarks were made a job she had successfully applied for was suddenly withdrawn, and the Guard also refused to hire her for a position she was qualified for, “despite her satisfactory performance as a federal employee,” as her lawsuit, filed in a federal court, states.

When the comment was allegedly made, it was not the first time. “From 2016 to 2018, I was constantly being pulled into my seniors’ offices being told my hair was out of regs (non-regulation),” Kingrey told The Daily Beast. “It crossed a line into harassment, and I carried on my person a copy of our regulations in regards to female hair length because I was not breaking any rules.”

Kingrey, from Charleston, West Virginia, believes that sexism and homophobia are key parts of her case—she was signaled out as a woman, and a lesbian woman specifically. Hers comports to a stereotypical lesbian appearance, she says, and her boss wanted her appearance to be more conventionally “feminine.”

The lawsuit, filed on Nov. 23 last year, claims Kingrey was subject to “continued harassment, discrimination, and retaliation based upon her sex—including her sexual orientation and perceived gender nonconformity.”

The incident that sparked the lawsuit occurred after Kingrey’s senior leader, Vice Wing Commander Col. Michael Cadle, called a female lieutenant colonel and asked her to go to lunch.

When the comment was allegedly made, it was not the first time. “From 2016 to 2018, I was constantly being pulled into my seniors’ offices being told my hair was out of regs (non-regulation),” Kingrey told The Daily Beast. “It crossed a line into harassment, and I carried on my person a copy of our regulations in regards to female hair length because I was not breaking any rules.”

Kingrey, from Charleston, West Virginia, believes that sexism and homophobia are key parts of her case—she was signaled out as a woman, and a lesbian woman specifically. Hers comports to a stereotypical lesbian appearance, she says, and her boss wanted her appearance to be more conventionally “feminine.”

The lawsuit, filed on Nov. 23 last year, claims Kingrey was subject to “continued harassment, discrimination, and retaliation based upon her sex—including her sexual orientation and perceived gender nonconformity.”

The incident that sparked the lawsuit occurred after Kingrey’s senior leader, Vice Wing Commander Col. Michael Cadle, called a female lieutenant colonel and asked her to go to lunch.