Republicans are lining up in opposition to a proposed Biden administration rule aimed at protecting LGBTQ foster children from abuse.
Yes, you read that right.
This is because they _actively want_ LGBTQ kids to be abused, and they've _actively fought_ to keep that abuse going throughout my entire life.
@moira That's not what the article says, though. It's not what they actively want.
So you're setting up a strawman argument to misrepresent the stance and inject your different, sensational version that, I imagine, supports your cause even though it's not actually factually correct.
That really doesn't do any of us any good.
@volkris IT IS ABSOLUTELY WHAT THEY ACTIVELY WANT.
I have decades of experience in this. Do you know their political language?
Have you transcribed fundamentalist political leaders urging their followers to make their own children homeless and destitute?
Are you aware of fundamentalist-lead Republican fights against anti-bullying programmes in schools _because_ it wouldn't let them beat up on queer kids? Have you listened to them as they said they'd _support_ it - if queer kids were excluded?
Have you heard them, yourself, personally, defend violence against LGBT people as a "normal and natural response to the perversion of homosexuality?"
BECAUSE I HAVE.
And every time - EVERY TIME - they call it a matter of religious liberty.
@volkris They haven't changed their language. They still use the same words with the same meanings they did 30 years ago, and they still boil down to the same realities.
Now if you want to pretend things like conversion therapy and the use of violence, intimidation, withholding of medical care, destitution and homelessness to make queer kids Not Queer Somehow _isn't_ child abuse, then I don't know where to start with you and we can end this conversation right the fuck now.
But I know damn well what this all means because it's what it's meant for _my entire life_ - and when talking amongst themselves, they at least used to just come out and say it.
And occasionally, they still do.
@moira see my experience says the complete opposite of what you're saying here, so *shrug*
Even the article that you linked to doesn't support what you're claiming here, which tells me that my experience isn't just some outlier. Even your own article reflects my experience that runs counter to what you are claiming.
So it comes across as gaslighting.
@volkris And sure, in the past, the Republican party wasn't _entirely_ that. But the fundamentalist base has been like that for a long, long time. And in the last couple of decades, they've completely taken over.
I've written about that, too. That's why the "mainstream" GOP can't shake off Trump; it's because _they aren't the Republican mainstream anymore_.
So when the evangelicals say dance, by god, the party dances, and that includes those they elect.
And their _actions_ are _very clear_. (And, when they think they're only talking to themselves, so are their words.)
They think it's good to do these things to queer kids, because hierarchy and because God Said.
"It's for their OWN GOOD," said every abuser ever. These are no different.
@volkris And as someone who has studied this movement for decades, in large part by listening to _them_ and reading _their works_, and who watched it morph into authoritarianism and warned anyone who would listen to me at the time, _you_ come across as "well, I got COVID and I didn't get too sick so it can't be serious. _shrug_ You sound like you're gaslighting."
And I'm long past sick of people refusing to acknowledge what these people do and want even as they're doing it and wanting it.
The article I'm pointing to is to show what they're doing in this instance, and the excuse they're giving _this time_.
The rest of my _post_ is about what the _actually means in life_, and is supported by examples from _their history_, which I describe.