Religious Right’s latest lunacy: Change the Constitution to eliminate ‘myth’ of trans people

[Guest LizMarie]

Yes, they really said this. Family Research Council is influential, large, and donates large sums to many right wing politicians.

And now they want to amend the constitution to forbid gender transition at all. Supporting "conservative" politicians supports this nonsense.

Cristian conservative activists have staked out a possibly new front in the culture wars by suggesting a constitutional amendment to regulate gender identity.

“Might Congress — might there be a need for us to have a constitutional movement, an amendment, to identify a person’s sex: It is what you are at birth?” said James, a former star running back for Southern Methodist University.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/religious-rights-latest-lunacy-change-the-constitution-to-eliminate-myth-of-trans-people/

[Bulldog1948]

These people are dangerous nut jobs. We must always be on the alert when they start slithering around. Yes, I equate them to the serpent that was in the Bible. These quack heads are not Christians. They are Haters all unto themselves. But yet, they squall and bawl when someone calls them out. They are extremely dangerous people. We can never let our guard down where they are concerned.

Mike

[Carolyn Marie]

LizMarie, I know we disagree about the effect of fringe people and groups like this guy, and the Family Research Council. There will always be people on the margins of history, just like there will always be a KKK and a cup cake Party, etc. I'm not saying we should ignore them. I'm just saying that I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

It's a free country, and fanatics have their rights. We just need to be careful they don't trample on ours. The more attention we pay, the more they like it. The KKK isn't going to bring back Jim Crow laws. The cup cake's aren't going to round up American Jews. And these folks aren't going to roll back the clock. They try, but they sure haven't had much luck.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest]

:banghead:

[Cyndee]

Only my .02

Wing nuts are deeply afraid of trans*, their words and actions are based on fear, fear of what this might mean to "their" beliefs.

Getting 3/4 of the states to ratify something like this, is just not gonna happen anytime soon. Most states on the coasts are liberal leaning.

What this does mean are efforts to reduce fear, and promote understanding should continue unabated. We can all do this one person at time in our daily lives, by being decent, honest, hard working, and guininely nice.

Take away the reasons to fear, and what do they have left, birth sex, nothing more.

Fear and hate won't go away, just isolate it....

[Charlize]

I can't imagine what it must be like to live with such hate and lack of compassion. I only wish that they could meet the savior they "believe" in.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Guest LizMarie]

You know, Carolyn, living here in Texas and watching the re-enactment of some Jim Crow laws already now that the Supreme Court struck down certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act, I have to simply disagree. What you say will never happen actually is happening in parts of the deep south already. Fayetteville, AK just repealed an LGBT protection ordinance under the drive and direction of the Duggar family. Governor elect Gregg Abbott here in Texas wants to have the conservative controlled Texas legislature supersede the LGBT protections enacted in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.

So while you may not be experiencing this out there in California and while you may see these people as outliers, quacks, and irrelevant, to some of us, this sort of nonsense is ongoing and very real. And like I said, I'll just continue to disagree.

P.S. FRC was part of the force that helped kill ENDA yet again in the US House of Representatives. To ignore their influence is, in my opinion, unwise.

[Guest]

Whoo boy, do some people need a life. How ugly of them to negatively obsess over the lives of people they refuse to understand. Meh. Pathetic, sad people out there. I can't see how someone else's life can be so threatening to the faith they think they're following. Sounds to me like we should add them to our prayer list. XD

As crazily right winged alot of southerners can be, I'm sure people here are capable of coming to understand that gender identity, among other things, isn't something you can "regulate" with selfish amendments to our constitution. Groups like FRC are complete garbage. So, we just have to work harder to make beautiful places like Texas a greater/safer place.

[VickySGV]

We should not ignore the likes of any of them, and instead we should carefully look at them but not butt heads together with them and give them the publicity they crave from us. We need to see where their weak spots are, and use those without direct comment, in sense flip over the porcupine where the soft belly is tickled to death, instead of us getting the quills in our nose.

[Guest Cyndysub]

I am surprised about the general publics apathy toward religion and its danger to others. I really think that people that are religious should be banned from school,city,state,federal job or position. They get these jobs and try to infect everyone with their crazy ideas on morals and behavior. Our U.S. Supreme court has a continuous river of wacky laws that get passed by the tea party machine that they have to rule on. Thankfully the court does a fairly good job of keeping a seperation between church and state. Religious people seem to actively try to inject religion in our everyday lives. Most of them will bring up the subject any chance that they get. The pledge of allegiance,paper money and coinage,nativity scenes, are some of the more apparent attempts to christianise our society.

[Carolyn Marie]

I am surprised about the general publics apathy toward religion and its danger to others. I really think that people that are religious should be banned from school,city,state,federal job or position. ..

I think its extremely important to draw a distinction between those few who try to impose their view of faith on everyone else, and use it as a club, and those who are religious but who seek to harm no one. and simply practice the tenets of their faith. Religion per se is not the problem. It is when it is used to harm others that we need to be concerned.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Mickey]

Every time I run across idiots like this I make sure that I expose the idiocy behind their arguements. I use my Facebook page to inform my family and friends of the crazy things being said about me. All my family and friends know me. If I can point out how this moronic, bigotted speach is directed at ME, and show the falsehood behind the speach, then I can make allies. And I get new allies almost daily. I love my new life.

[Guest otter-girl]

These type of people can be found in politics as well as religion. Their doctrine always involves crude and non-spiritual imposition of their will on others to the detriment of those others. There is no light in this., only darkness. Given free reign all the horrors of history would be revisited. I am not a Christian but came across a bible text that was very apt to apply to the FRC.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! -Isaiah 5:20

Hugs

Rach.

[Guest LizMarie]

I am surprised about the general publics apathy toward religion and its danger to others. I really think that people that are religious should be banned from school,city,state,federal job or position. ..

I think its extremely important to draw a distinction between those few who try to impose their view of faith on everyone else, and use it as a club, and those who are religious but who seek to harm no one. and simply practice the tenets of their faith. Religion per se is not the problem. It is when it is used to harm others that we need to be concerned.

Carolyn Marie

Highlighted for emphasis.

I agree with that statement, Carolyn, and that is why I try to be as precise as I can about which "religious" (I really consider them to be Pharisees...) people I am discussing. The use of the term radical right wing religious extremists is a very deliberate term because it is pointed, focused, and true. These people are radical compared to the majority of Americans. They are right wing. They are religious. And they are extremists (even Pope Francis has said this). So the whole term is one I use in an effort to be precise. It's not all Christians, not all Protestants, not even all fundamentalist evangelicals. It's radical right wing religious extremists.

So I think we need to be laser beam focused on who is really the problem here, and not condemn everyone else for the actions of this one group.

I will note however, they are large, numbering in the several millions category, but not in the tens nor hundreds of millions category of the rest of us.

[Carolyn Marie]

I agree with that statement, Carolyn, and that is why I try to be as precise as I can about which "religious" (I really consider them to be Pharisees...) people I am discussing.

:thumbsup:

Carolyn Marie

[Guest Cyndysub]

Religion in and of it self does not harm anything but the people that drape it over themselves do. Religion is not evil by its self but "Organized" religion is more often than not. My 2 cents.

[Guest Mickey]

Always remember that just because somebody calls themself a Christian, does NOT mean they are a true follower of Christ. Wolf in sheeps clothing, so to speak.

[Guest LizMarie]

As an addendum to this, here's more about this proposal they made.

http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/12/11/right-wingers-want-constitutional-amendment-banning-trans-people?utm_content=buffer443ef&utm_medium=social&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer

"Gender identity, that might be the flashpoint, that might be the next thing we have to combat in this war with the LGBT community and those who are challenging sexuality," concluded James.

Please note the highlighted phrase. Think about that.

These people see themselves in a war with you.

You don't get to choose if you are in the war. If you are trans, you are the enemy. It takes two to make peace but just one to wage war.

Given that the best estimates I can get of these people is that they number between 10-20 million total, that they very actively vote, that they willingly organize and spend money on political issues, we do need to be active and vigilant against these kinds of people.

Just like with racists in the 1960s, they are not large enough to win elections by themselves, but you can darned well count on someone trying to appeal to them directly in their opposition to trans people. And if I had to bet who, it would be Republicans, because Republicans did the exact same thing with the infamous "Southern Strategy" against people of color. And if anyone is already prepared to exploit bigotry, it's the GOP, given their long history of doing exactly that from Kevin Phillips and Richard Nixon then going forward from there.