Church-State-Bigotry Overlap

Christians have been arguing about what constitutes a "true" Christian, battling about esoteric theological points virtually since day one. Even when "the Church" was ostensibly united - before the East-West Schism, before the rise of Islam cut off many Christians from regular communication with their coreligionists, before the Protestant Reformation and the various Great Awakenings, there have been arguments about just about every aspect of Christianity, with the winners - those who held the power - writing the rules and casting out those who disagreed as heretics. I'm sure some of the arguments were good faith attempts to make sense of the jumble of mutual exclusivity that is The Bible, but often theological arguments were just a way to sanctify purely political disagreements.  Over the centuries The Bible was used to justify pogroms against Jews, colonialism and slavery. 

Wow, it's almost as if there's a Bible verse to justify just about any kind of horrible behavior.

We shouldn't be surprised that in 2022 there are still people who are using The Bible to rationalize their repugnant actions and beliefs. A textbook example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, Christians who subscribe to the version of Jesus who loves everybody and is a kind of proto-socialist, call out the Christian Nationalists and homophobes as "not true Christians", while the latter could claim to have a longer pedigree than the former, going back at least 1500, if not 2000, years. They're just as "true" as the flower children, soup kitchen building, love thy neighbor Christians. 

Today, bigots and White Nationalists cloak their views in The Bible just like horrible people have always done. They can't construct any rational arguments to support their bigotry and hatred, so they justify it as divinely mandated. Their bigotry against gay, transgender and other groups, while ignorant at its core, has to have a cover. No one likes to see themselves as the villain of the story. Few people want to come right out and say that they want to restrict the rights of LBGTQ+ people simply because they hate them. They have to start with the assumption that the existence of LBGTQ+ people is inarguably wrong. I say start, but the stating point is actually the bigotry, they convince themselves that the bigotry isn't really bigotry, that it isn't their view, but God's, abdicating responsibility for their own hatred. In this twisted view, you don't need to accuse individuals of anything because the very fact of their being who their are is viewed as the offense. 

Once you have redefined a person's whole self as an aberration it's a short hop to defining anything connected with them as worthy of being legislated against. Simply acknowledging that a school child has gay parents becomes a crime, counseling or comforting a teenager who feels they were born as the wrong gender and may be contemplating suicide can get you fired or jailed. Drag Queens reading to kids is interpreted as "sexualizing children". The most innocent of actions becomes reframed in the most awful terms...if it's an LBGTQ+ person doing it. But talking to a 5 year-old boy about the little girl next store as his "girlfriend" or telling stories about the princess succeeding at life because she gets the prince isn't "grooming" at all. Right. 

Now we are seeing laws being written in jurisdictions across the country codifying this bigotry. Politicians revel in their hatred and subjugation of marginalized groups, decrying the homosexual or transgender "agenda" as if they were a domineering majority in power, rather than a small vulnerable minority. The way our political system works, this is effective. A Republican in many states only has to energize their Christian Nationalist-Bigot base to win a primary and victory over the Democrat is virtually assured due to the brainwashing that paints all Democrats as socialists who hate America. It's how in state after state the views of a minority become law.  

These people are not going away.