Tag Archives: homophobia

Hubbell Cuts To The Chase

We are now seeing the “Chattering Class” carping and criticising and offering convoluted reasons for America’s descent into fascism–aka, the election of Donald Trump. Harris should have gone more to the Left, no, she should have gone to the Right, the problem was Democratic elitism, etc. (Interestingly, very few media pundits have addressed the very real role played by the media environment, very much including a mainstream press which failed repeatedly to call insanity insanity, instead normalizing aberrant rhetoric and behavior that formerly would have been consider shocking and disqualifying.)

Almost all of those smug analyses are efforts to avoid the truth–refusals to face what really happened. Robert Hubbell, however, was clear-eyed:

Just as the media normalized Trump before the election, there is a wholesale effort to “normalize” the election results. Pundits are claiming the election was decided by voters’ concerns over inflation, immigration, or crime. Those issues are post-facto rationalizations offered by voters to conceal their real reasons for voting for a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser over an eminently qualified candidate.

Kamala Harris lost because Trump’s supporters were motivated by racism, misogyny, and white supremacy. They voted for a felon and against prosecutor/senator/vice president because she is a woman of Black and South Asian ancestry. All of the remaining explanations are camouflage to conceal the real motivations of those who voted against Kamala Harris.

We will learn nothing if we accept pollsters’ dog-and-pony show to explain the election with exit polls and crosstabs in spreadsheets that have nothing to do with the real motivations of voters. Do not conflate data with information. Do not mistake information for knowledge. Do not confuse knowledge and understanding. Do not accept percentages and cohorts in response to the simple but profound question, “Why?”

Racism. Misogyny. White supremacy. Occam’s Razor.

Hubble is exactly right. H.L. Mencken predicted this years ago, locating the problem precisely in the defects of We the People:

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.”

Well, we’re there.

Those of us who live in a kinder, less hateful world misunderstood the effects of Trump’s out-and-proud racism. We thought his horrific Madison Square Garden rally damaged him–as it certainly did with the nice, normal people who weren’t going to vote for him anyway. What is now clear, however, is that Trump’s supporters don’t share the reactions of nice, normal people. For them, it was a welcome endorsement of their bigotries, a reassurance that their resentments are valid, and an explicit permission to express them. It was a rejection of “political correctness” (aka civility), and a validation of the public expression of invective and meanness.

We all need to recognize that the inhumanity, the bigotry, the misogyny isn’t a bug–its a feature. Indeed, it is the feature. It isn’t a distasteful aspect of the Trump campaign that voters nevertheless overlooked–it is what a majority of our fellow-citizens voted for.

Living with that understanding is hurtful, to put it mildly.

But there’s a semi-silver lining. There’s a biblical adage to the effect that “the truth shall make you free.” Now we know. And when those who are working to build a better, kinder, more inclusive society know what they are up against, they can fight for that society more effectively.

We are about to see some very dark years. The theocrats and autocrats and ignoramuses will attack the foundational premises of America, and they will do considerable damage. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to step back and consider whether we want to defend a status quo that has morphed and ossified in unfortunate ways–a status quo with serious systemic flaws, economic unfairness, overly-complex and under-inclusive social programs…the list is long. The insecurities generated by the gaps and injustices undoubtedly contributed to the frustration and hate. Our jobs, during the dark days, will be to consider what we will build when the edifice built on racism, misogyny, homophobia and nationalism collapses.

Because it will. And we need to be ready to pick up the pieces–ready to replace both the dark side and the considerable flaws that preceded and enabled it with a better, more humane, more just version of the American Idea.

We need to resist the worst that will come. We must try to protect the objects of Trumpers’ animus. But we also need to plan for what will come after.

We have work to do.

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How Worried Should We Be?

This year, Indiana’s GOP statewide slate contains three Christian Nationalists–Beckwith, Banks and Rokita–along with ” I’ll- kiss-Trump’s-you-know-what-to- get elected” Braun.

We’ve always had zealots and ideologues in politics, and as a policy person, I find them very troubling.  I used to tell my students that crafting good policies requires negotiation and compromise. When ideologues are able to push through extreme visions of extreme policies, without considering thoughtful, informed concerns raised by people who bring other perspectives to the process, the end result is inevitably flawed—if it works at all.

The effect of America’s increasing tribalism on our ability to conduct even the most basic tasks of governance has been bad enough, but the transformation of the Republican Party into a Christian Nationalist cult threatens the continuation of America’s constitutional democracy—and I say that as someone who was an active Republican for over 35 years. The GOP of today bears absolutely no resemblance to the party I once worked for. What was once its disreputable fringe is now its mainstream.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time lately researching Christian Nationalism, which is based upon the very ahistorical insistence that America was founded as a “Christian nation” and should be governed by Christians. These are beliefs that genuine Christians reject.

According to the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty,

Christian nationalism is a political ideology and cultural framework that merges Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s promise of religious freedom. It relies heavily on a false narrative of America as a “Christian nation,” founded by Christians in order to privilege Christianity. This mythical history betrays the work of the framers to create a federal government that would remain neutral when it comes to religion, neither promoting nor denigrating it — a deliberate break with the state-established religions of the colonies.

Christian nationalists have an “exclusivity” message: only “their kind” of Christians can be “real” Americans. A less frequently articulated part of that message (and the reason Black Evangelical Christians are rarely Christian Nationalists) is their racist belief that only WHITE Christian males can be real Americans.

These racist and exclusionary beliefs are entirely inconsistent with what we know about the beliefs of the Framers, and with the clear language of the Constitution. In the body of the Constitution itself is Article VI, which prohibits the use of any religious test for public office. In the text of the First Amendment, we have the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, which—read together—keep government’s hands off religion and protect the liberty of citizens to determine their own beliefs, free of government interference. (The Framers voted down proposed language that simply prohibited the creation of a national church, insisting on language that would create a broader distance between religion and government.) We also have numerous documents written by Madison, Jefferson, Adams and others, all of which support their uniform and unambiguous belief that—as Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists—there should be a “wall of separation between Church and State.”

There isn’t any debate about any of this among reputable historians and legal scholars. Less reputable ones pander to  Christian Nationalism by twisting and cherry-picking history in order to justify their efforts to remake American society into a place where women, gays and people of color occupy subservient positions and White Christian males are once again dominant.

In a very real sense, America is in the throes of a second civil war, this time mostly—but not entirely—without violence. Ironically, this war is being fought over pretty much the same ground as the last one: the assertion that some Americans are entitled to a status superior to others and that non-white, non-Christian, non-male members of society are less entitled than White Christian men to civic equality and the equal protection of the laws.

Project 2025 is a declaration of that civil war–a road map to MAGA’s desired Christian Nationalist theocracy.

Depressing research from the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that 40% of Hoosiers are either full-fledged Christian Nationalists or sympathetic to their beliefs. As we’ve seen, these folks are unwilling to participate in democratic deliberation, unwilling to accord religious liberty to others, and unwilling to accept results of democratic decision-making with which they disagree.

Like Micah Beckwith, they believe they talk to God.

It has never been more important for the sixty percent of Hoosiers who don’t fall into that category to cast their ballots for an excellent–and truly American— slate of Democratic candidates: Jennifer McCormick, Terry Goodin, Valerie McCray, and Destiny Wells, none of whom claim to be on a conversational, first-name basis with God.

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The Idiocy Of The Isms…

Okay–I guess the time for mulling over relatively abstract issues of political philosophy has passed.

I really haven’t wanted to comment on the eruptions of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, or the wars currently raging in Ukraine or Gaza, because, after all, what can I add? That Russia’s incursion is inconsistent with global order and international law? That failure to help Ukraine would undermine democracy and stability around the world? That there are no unblemished “good guys” in the history of the Middle East? That there are deep divisions of opinion and politics within both the Israeli and Palestinian populations? That none of that is an excuse for the slaughter of innocent people attending a music festival?

That rain is wet…?

What I suppose I will never understand is the widespread tendency to believe that people who share a race or religion or ethnicity are all alike. (I think that’s the definition of bigotry.)

Like most members of the Indianapolis Jewish community, I get emails from our local Jewish organizations. I recently received one that began as follows:

Ruba Awni Almaghtheh drove her vehicle into a building in a residential neighborhood at 3500 N Keystone Av, Indianapolis. This building is identified as belonging to and representing a sect of the Black Hebrew Israelites (designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), with a semblance of a star of David on the front door. Based on this signage and “Hebrew Israelite” wording, it is believed Almaghtheh thought the building to represent Israel in some way, specifically citing the Hebrew Israelite symbol on the door. The woman was immediately taken into custody. Coordination with local and federal law enforcement continues.

I can’t help thinking that this incident displays –indeed, highlights–everything that’s wrong with bigots. Stupidity, of course, (in this case amplified by the perpetrator’s evident inability to accurately identify her target) but especially the stupidity of blaming an entire group of people for actions of some of them with which you disagree.

The incident just underlines the idiocy of racism and bigotry.

If an Arab kid stole your bike when you were young, would you grow up assuming that all Arabs are thieves? If you saw one woman faint at the sight of blood, would you conclude that no women could be surgeons?

Questions like these ought to answer themselves.

What intellectual deficit or personality flaw causes someone to conclude that all members of a defined group are alike, that any misbehavior by any one of them reflects characteristics and behaviors common to all of them–and that animus toward the entire group is thus justifiable?

(That lack of uniformity works both ways: Jews have received a wildly disproportionate number of Nobel prizes, but believe me, that doesn’t mean all Jews are smart…)

My mother used to say that the only thing two Jews could agree on was what a third should be donating to charity. She wasn’t far wrong–we’re a disputatious lot. So are Black people. So are Muslims, women, LGBTQ folks…

Humans are individuals.

Anyone who has been following the political turmoil in Israel knows that Israelis are deeply divided over the policies of the Netanyahu government, and deeply conflicted over the proper approach to Gaza and to the Palestinians. Anyone who has been following the internal politics of the American Jewish community knows that those divisions are equally sharp here. (As recently as July, for example, the Guardian reported on Jewish groups demonstrating against the Israeli settlements policy.)

The current increases in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents, along with the stubborn persistence of American racism, act as uncomfortable reminders that we humans are deeply and inappropriately tribal–that we apparently have a very dangerous need to see the world in shades of “us” and “them,” and to see “them” as a monolithic, undifferentiated whole.

I don’t know what deep-seated tribal hatred convinced Ruba Awni Almaghtheh that she should ram her car into a building she presumed was occupied by “them,” or what she thought such vandalism would accomplish (other than wrecking her car).  I do know that expressions of anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and the like are the antithesis of civilized behavior, and that our current global unrest is largely due to politicians like Trump and Putin who encourage and legitimate the latent and not-so-latent bigotries of not-very-bright people.

One of the most laudable aspects of the American legal system is that it is a system that is intended to ignore the question of identity. In America, who you are isn’t supposed to matter–what does matter is how you behave. Not how your clan or tribe behaves, but how you, individually, behave.

Bigotry isn’t just stupid. It’s anti-American.

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The More We Learn…

It’s a conundrum.

Any civilized society operates by creating and enforcing rules. Social tranquility depends upon choosing wise people to make the rules and fair-minded people to enforce them.Right now, America isn’t doing too well with either of those populations.

This blog spends an inordinate amount of time on the clown show that is the U.S. House of Representatives, but problems with enforcement–with policing–are equally thorny.

From the beating of Rodney King to the murder of George Floyd and the multitude of other unwarranted violent episodes, Americans have been inundated with video evidence of questionable police behavior.

And “questionable” is frequently the correct word. As public safety professionals will tell us, protecting the public often requires split-second decision-making in situations that are a lot more ambiguous than they appear after the fact. Given the difficulties they face, giving police the benefit of reasonable doubt is only fair.

But all doubt isn’t reasonable.

Reporters keep uncovering deeply disturbing evidence of a racist, anti-Semitic and thuggish culture that persists in a troubling number of police departments. A year or so ago, one such culture was exposed in Torrance ,California . Text messages that had circulated among current and former officers of the city’s Police Department “reveal a culture rife with racism, antisemitism, and homophobia going back at least a decade.”

The texts are extremely violent in nature and grotesquely racist, homophobic, and antisemitic.

According to reporting from the LA Times, one text shows a picture of a candy cane, a Christmas tree ornament, a star for the top of the tree, and an “enslaved person.”

“Which one doesn’t belong?” the caption asks.

“You don’t hang the star,” someone replies.

Another message reads “hanging with the homies,” attached was a photo of several Black men who had been lynched.

Another photo asks what someone would do if their girlfriend was having an affair with a Black man. The captioned response was to break “a tail light on his car so the police will stop him and shoot him.”

Prosecutors say the messages go back years and could jeopardize hundreds of criminal cases in which the officers either testified or made arrests.

The LA Times identified 13 current and former police officers and one Long Beach cop who are now under investigation. At least nine of the officers texted images or commentary advocating violence against Black people and LGBTQ community members and ridiculing racial profiling.

There was much more, and all horrific. Discovery of the texts was triggered by an investigation of two former Torrance police officers who had spray-painted a swastika inside a resident’s car.

If Torrance was an isolated instance, it would be troubling enough, but in the last few years, we’ve seen repeated evidence that these White Supremacy attitudes are widespread among both the police and the military.

As the linked article by an FBI agent now with the Brennan Center warns:

For decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has routinely warned its agents that the white supremacist and far-right militant groups it investigates often have links to law enforcement. Yet the justice department has no national strategy designed to protect the communities policed by these dangerously compromised law enforcers. As our nation grapples with how to reimagine public safety in the wake of the protests following the police killing of George Floyd, it is time to confront and resolve the persistent problem of explicit racism in law enforcement.

I know about these routine warnings because I received them as a young FBI agent preparing to accept an undercover assignment against neo-Nazi groups in Los Angeles, California, in 1992. But you don’t have to take my word for it. A redacted version of a 2006 FBI intelligence assessment, White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement, alerted agents to “both strategic infiltration by organized groups and self-initiated infiltration by law enforcement personnel sympathetic to white supremacist causes.”

As the officer who wrote the above article pointed out, If the U.S. government found out that al-Qaida or a similar foreign terrorist organization had infiltrated American law enforcement, it would immediately launch a nationwide effort to identify those individuals and neutralize the threat.

Yet white supremacists and far-right militants have committed far more attacks and killed more people in the U.S. over the last 10 years than any foreign terrorist movement. The FBI regards them as the most lethal domestic terror threat. The need for national action is even more critical.

We the People need the police. But we need the right kind of police. That requires hiring practices capable of weeding out thuggish, bigoted applicants, and training that emphasizes service to all parts of the communities they will be hired to protect.

We have a problem, and public safety requires that we fix it.

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No More Dog Whistles…

Indiana contributes more than its share to the crazy caucus of the House of Representatives. Our state’s intrepid culture warriors not only close ranks with the far-Right “lawmakers” (note quotes) intent upon blocking  anything close to actual governance, they are also happy to advance their bigotries publicly.

No more “dog whistles.” Just good old Hoosier White Supremacy.

Take Jim Banks. (Please!) In addition to his vote to shut down the government and his efforts to form an “anti-woke” caucus, he and Greg Stuebe (R-Fl) are coming after the accreditation of colleges and universities.

And why, you might reasonably ask, would they be doing that?

Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Greg Steube (R-FL) urged Congress to take action to reform the college accreditation process to combat diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements from accrediting agencies.

In a Washington Examiner op-ed Wednesday, the two Republican lawmakers, known to be among the most conservative members of Congress, argued that the college accreditation system has become politicized with diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements and that congressional action is needed to solve the issue….

Banks and Steube are both members of the House Anti-Woke Caucus, which they said was launched in part because of the state of higher education. The two lawmakers, along with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), introduced the Fairness In Higher Education Accreditation Act earlier this year, which would ban accrediting agencies from requiring commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion from institutions seeking to be accredited.

Well, yes, I suppose efforts to combat historic discrimination and bigotry could be considered “political”–at least, if you are one of the far-too-numerous Americans who are trying to take the country back to a time when only straight White Christian men were considered “real Americans.”

“Credit” where it’s due: Banks doesn’t limit his bigotry to racism. He’s also a rabid misogynist/forced birther– 100% anti-choice with zero exceptions. (Evidently, if a ten-year-old is impregnated during a vicious rape, it’s God’s will…) During his time in Congress, Banks has endorsed a federal abortion ban, called the overturning of Roe v. Wade a “joyful day,” and supported imposition of a travel ban that would criminalize women who leave a state to access an abortion.

In an interview with a conservative Fort Wayne radio host, Banks touted such a travel ban–and went on to say, “there’s much more that we must do, that we need to do, that I’m going to fight for in the House, and when I get to the Senate, I’m going to fight for there in a bigger way as well.”

That certainly tells Hoosier women what’s at stake in the upcoming campaign for U.S. Senate…(You can donate to his Democratic, pro-choice rival here.)

And we shouldn’t forget Banks’ homophobia, demonstrated by his despicable attacks on trans children. The far-Right “Family Policy Alliance” has praised him for his introduction of a mean-spirited bill that would effectively prevent doctors from assisting children diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Senator Tom Cotton (AR) and Congressman Jim Banks (IN-3) have introduced federal legislation to protect vulnerable children from transgender interventions, the Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act. The legislation provides minors a private right of action to sue the medical professionals who perform their “transition” procedures for 30 years after they turn 18…

Here at Family Policy Alliance, we firmly believe that hurting children deserve real help, not the harm of experimental hormones and irreversible surgeries. That’s why we authored our Help Not Harm legislation to protect children at the state level. Now, Congressman Banks and Senator Cotton are boldly taking that language to the federal level to protect children around the nation. We heartily support them in this effort.”

Rep. Banks noted of the legislation, “This is such a common-sense bill, and FPA’s been on the front lines advocating for this legislation at the state level, which is where we pulled ideas from to write the federal version of this bill.”

What kind of person considers it “common sense” to over-rule the considered and difficult decisions of medical professionals, their patients and patients’ families–to insert government into the doctor-patient relationship in order to ensure that vulnerable children abide by his Christian Nationalist beliefs?

The answer is: the same sort of ignoramus who would say–as Banks did in October of 2016, according to Wikipedia–“I believe that climate change in this country is largely leftist propaganda to change the way Americans live and create more government obstruction and intrusion in our lives.”

For a guy who opposes “government intrusion in our lives,” he’s sure willing to use government to limit women’s rights, interfere with health care for LGBTQ youngsters, and prevent colleges and universities from battling discrimination.

Georgia has Margery Taylor Green. We have Jim Banks.

What an embarrassment……

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