{"id":7835,"date":"2022-05-08T13:24:58","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T13:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7835"},"modified":"2022-05-08T13:24:58","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T13:24:58","slug":"old-school-homophobia-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=7835","title":{"rendered":"Old-school homophobia is back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Florida\u2019s education law is couched in the language of parental rights and uses vague language to implicitly threaten LGBTQ teachers and allies with lawsuits. Though supporters had said the law bans inappropriate conversations about sexual activity with young students, the text never explicitly<\/a> referencesdiscussionsof sex \u2014 only explicitly forbidding conversations about \u201csexual orientation or gender identity.\u201d The ban applies from kindergarten through third grade but leaves an opening for \u201cage-appropriate\u201d restrictions beyond those grades, while also not defining what \u201cage-appropriate\u201d means.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation never uses the words \u201cgay\u201d or \u201ctrans,\u201d but advocates argue that queer and trans Americans would be the primary targets of lawsuits by parents and officials behind the restrictions. Echoing the model of Texas\u2019s abortion ban<\/a>, Florida\u2019s law deputizes parents as watchdogs, providing a path through the courts to punish schools and staff that violate the statute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legislatures in Alabama, Ohio, and Louisiana have since advanced similar proposals; Texas\u2019s lieutenant governor is looking at introducing a bill when its next legislative session starts, and lawmakers in six other states, mostly in the South, have supported iterations of restrictions on LGBTQ identity in schools. Some of these proposals are more explicit than Florida\u2019s \u2014 Tennessee\u2019s proposal seeks to ban books or material that support or promote LGBTQ \u201cissues or lifestyle\u201d altogether \u2014 but all offer a window into how social conservatives see opportunities to roll back protections for queer and trans people: score victories in the courts and make the cultural fight more extreme.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…
“Radical right-wing activists and commentators in recent weeks have been making literal accusations<\/a> of pedophilia (in a callback to a trope from the 1970s and earlier) and grooming (which in its true sense means to \u201cgain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught,\u201d according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network<\/a>). But they\u2019ve also been increasingly using \u201cgrooming\u201d as a casual insult to try to create a vague link between all LGBTQ people and cases of child abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What started on the fringes, with conservative activists riding the coattails of last year\u2019s anti-critical race theory moral panic, crossed over into mainstream media during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson last month. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) questioned<\/a> the future justice\u2019s thinking on gender, child abuse, and race. As Georgetown professor Don Moynihan wrote<\/a> about Hawley\u2019s line of attack<\/a>, the point was \u201cto create an association between Jackson and this broader trope\u201d of child predators running rampant in public institutions. That spawned a universe of outrage in conservative media, further buoying the legislative action underway in Republican states.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating to see that we are having the same fight over and over again \u2026 but I believe that these folks are desperate. They have lost every fight they have picked on LGBT issues. They lost on trying to criminalize sodomy, they lost on marriage equality, they lost on bathroom bills, they lost on wedding services refusal \u2014 and we\u2019re at 75 to 80 percent<\/a> support for nondiscrimination laws,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the loudest supporters of this effort have admitted this: \u201cThe alternative to the culture war is a culture surrender. There is no neutral option,\u201d one reads<\/a>. \u201cThe right needs to go scorched earth with \u2018groomer,\u2019\u201d says another<\/a>. \u201cWe are building a new model of conservative activism\u201d with the grooming messaging, argues Christopher Rufo<\/a>, a leading anti-critical race theory activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rhetoric complements the institutional work that conservative think tanks are doing in pushing these bills. Lawmakers in these states have consulted organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and American Principles Project in crafting proposals, Vice reported<\/a>. (The Alliance Defending Freedom confirmed its involvement in a statement to Vox.) The progressive advocates I spoke with told me they see this feedback loop among radical activists, lawmakers, and think tanks as part of a more desperate ploy to use transgender people as a wedge issue to open the door to more mainstream attacks on trans and queer people in public life.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“”They pick on trans kids in the first place, because there are lots of well-meaning people who don\u2019t totally understand what it means to be trans.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/23021971\/florida-gay-trans-lgbtq-laws<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Florida\u2019s education law is couched in the language of parental rights and uses vague language to implicitly threaten LGBTQ teachers and allies with lawsuits. Though supporters had said the law bans inappropriate conversations about sexual activity with young students, the text never explicitly references discussions of sex \u2014 only explicitly forbidding conversations about \u201csexual orientation or gender identity.\u201d The ban applies from kindergarten through third grade but leaves an opening for \u201cage-appropriate\u201d restrictions beyond those grades, while also not defining what \u201cage-appropriate\u201d means.<\/p>\n

The legislation never uses the words \u201cgay\u201d or \u201ctrans,\u201d but advocates argue that queer and trans Americans would be the primary targets of lawsuits by parents and officials behind the restrictions. Echoing the model of Texas\u2019s abortion ban, Florida\u2019s law deputizes parents as watchdogs, providing a path through the courts to punish schools and staff that violate the statute.<\/p>\n

Legislatures in Alabama, Ohio, and Louisiana have since advanced similar proposals; Texas\u2019s lieutenant governor is looking at introducing a bill when its next legislative session starts, and lawmakers in six other states, mostly in the South, have supported iterations of restrictions on LGBTQ identity in schools. <\/p>\n

Some of these proposals are more explicit than Florida\u2019s \u2014 Tennessee\u2019s proposal seeks to ban books or material that support or promote LGBTQ \u201cissues or lifestyle\u201d altogether \u2014 but all offer a window into how social conservatives see opportunities to roll back protections for queer and trans people: score victories in the courts and make the cultural fight more extreme.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Radical right-wing activists and commentators in recent weeks have been making literal accusations of pedophilia (in a callback to a trope from the 1970s and earlier) and grooming (which in its true sense means to \u201cgain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught,\u201d according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). But they\u2019ve also been increasingly using \u201cgrooming\u201d as a casual insult to try to create a vague link between all LGBTQ people and cases of child abuse.
\nWhat started on the fringes, with conservative activists riding the coattails of last year\u2019s anti-critical race theory moral panic, crossed over into mainstream media during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson last month. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) questioned the future justice\u2019s thinking on gender, child abuse, and race. As Georgetown professor Don Moynihan wrote about Hawley\u2019s line of attack, the point was \u201cto create an association between Jackson and this broader trope\u201d of child predators running rampant in public institutions. That spawned a universe of outrage in conservative media, further buoying the legislative action underway in Republican states.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating to see that we are having the same fight over and over again \u2026 but I believe that these folks are desperate. They have lost every fight they have picked on LGBT issues. They lost on trying to criminalize sodomy, they lost on marriage equality, they lost on bathroom bills, they lost on wedding services refusal \u2014 and we\u2019re at 75 to 80 percent support for nondiscrimination laws,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Some of the loudest supporters of this effort have admitted this: \u201cThe alternative to the culture war is a culture surrender. There is no neutral option,\u201d one reads. \u201cThe right needs to go scorched earth with \u2018groomer,\u2019\u201d says another. \u201cWe are building a new model of conservative activism\u201d with the grooming messaging, argues Christopher Rufo, a leading anti-critical race theory activist.<\/p>\n

The rhetoric complements the institutional work that conservative think tanks are doing in pushing these bills. Lawmakers in these states have consulted organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and American Principles Project in crafting proposals, Vice reported. (The Alliance Defending Freedom confirmed its involvement in a statement to Vox.) The progressive advocates I spoke with told me they see this feedback loop among radical activists, lawmakers, and think tanks as part of a more desperate ploy to use transgender people as a wedge issue to open the door to more mainstream attacks on trans and queer people in public life.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“”They pick on trans kids in the first place, because there are lots of well-meaning people who don\u2019t totally understand what it means to be trans.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[696,697,1205,919],"class_list":["post-7835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-gay","tag-homosexual","tag-homosexuality","tag-lgbtq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7836,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7835\/revisions\/7836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}