Letters from Peter: "Christian" Homophobia's Deadly Agenda
No place for complacency in this year's Pride parades... • by Peter Laarman
A good friend chided me for writing at length last week about Hard Right efforts to put people back in line and re-establish racial and gender hierarchies without specifically saying more about how homophobia fits into it. This friend, who is gay like me, wondered whether I even have anything useful to say during Gay Pride Month.
Ouch! I did say something in passing about the sex panic troubling the breasts of the insecure white men who also live in fear of a Black Planet, but there is obviously more to say.
In his lively Republic of Wrath, historian James Morone demonstrates how so much of American politics turns on the manipulation of these closely linked racial and sexual fears, going all the way back to the election of 1800 in which Thomas Jefferson savaged incumbent John Adams over a trade deal that Adams made with Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture. According to the Jeffersonians, free Haitian sailors would soon be on the prowl for white women in every American port, and all manner of disorder would ensue. The Adams forces, of course, countered that Jefferson himself was dangerously disordered when it came to Black people and illicit sex.
What strikes me in the current landscape is how Trump and his closest minions don’t bother to hide their overt racism but rarely spout overt homophobia. Instead, they let their proxies — neo-Nazis and Proud Boys and the like — do that dirty work for them. Trump himself isn’t anxious in the least about sex — the last word you would ever apply to him is “puritanical” — but that doesn’t mean he is above allowing sexual anxieties to animate his base.
Recall how “Fuck you, faggots!” was a major chant for the racist Charlottesville rioters in 2017, with Trump then coming behind to say there were “good people on both sides” in Charlottesville. Apart from the groyper/brownshirt cohort endlessly spewing viciousness on social media, the other part of the Trump base that is happy to keep the homophobic pot boiling is of course the conservative Christian movement. One reason I was freaked out by the instant beatification of Charlie Kirk is that this was someone with a huge following on college campuses who was unapologetically homophobic, referring to the stoning to death of queer people as an expression of “God’s perfect law,” etc.
American churches today are about as sharply polarized on homosexuality as are the national political parties, but let’s take the parties first. A big national Gallup poll last month found not only that overall support for gay rights has been slipping for the past five years but also that the national political parties are increasingly divided over gender fluidity. In the new poll, only 5% of Republicans agree that gender transition is morally acceptable, compared to 60% of Democrats. When Gallup first asked about transition in 2021, 22% of Republicans agreed, along with 67% of Democrats. Clearly, relentless right-wing tolling of trans kids is having an impact.
In the churches, polling from back in March shows that there remains broad overall support for nondiscrimination. But here, too, sharp differences lie just below the surface. Dig a little deeper and the same survey finds that it all depends on where people live and their specific religious affiliation. Here is the not-so-cheerful news from the poll summary:
Additional analysis finds that Americans who qualify as Christian nationalism Rejecters are notably more likely to support LGBTQ rights than those who qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents, Sympathizers, or Skeptics.
The reason this ought to worry us has everything to do with who actually holds power in these Disunited States of America. White Christian nationalism — the 21st century equivalent of what in 1850 was called the Slave Power — seeks to control and weaponize government at every level, and it continues to gain ground thanks to a compliant Supreme Court and fundamental weaknesses built into the Constitution itself: an antidemocratic Electoral College, the chokehold of an unrepresentative Senate, etc. The white nationalists can look forward to a big boost in Congressional representation from the 2030 census, thanks to rising populations in conservative Southern states. But they aren’t waiting for that bonanza to come their way: with the High Court’s blessing they are already expanding and consolidating power through racial gerrymandering ahead of this year’s midterms. And it’s not just Black voting rights they intend to roll back: women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights are also on the chopping block.
All of this ought to remind us of how gay liberation emerged in the first place: on the backs of the civil rights organizers and martyrs who effected a human rights revolution through rigorous nonviolent discipline and great sacrifice during the middle of the 20th century. Partly because I was a civil rights activist before I ever dared to own and act upon my queer identity, I have never stopped thinking about and talking about the debt that I and all queer people owe to the Black Freedom Movement.
As we head off to Pride celebrations this month, will we remember to remember this debt? Will we stand with those now directly targeted yet again for disenfranchisement, understanding how our fates are intertwined? I’ll put it this way: as a gay white man, I’d be a lot prouder if people like me were a little less self-satisfied and a lot more aware of how we are all tied together in what Dr. King called “a single garment of destiny.” The alarm bells are growing louder. Are we listening?
~ Peter
Notes and credits: Artwork in pull quote: “Yitro” by Christina E
Such important points, from one who has been both a civil rights activist and supporter of LGBTQ+ liberation all my adult life, like you. King’s quote a central perspective. Thank you! Don Manning-Miller from Mississippi