Wait...Jesus told me that straight White folks rule the world

And the Lord's never wrong...right??

I can think of few things more objectionable yet less surprising than Republicans running against one another in a primary intended to show who hates transgender people more. Yet that’s precisely what’s happening in West Virginia’s GOP Gubernatorial primary, where anti-trans Republicans are competing to convince the state’s GOP voters who will oppress transgender West Virginians the most.

Yes, it’s every bit as pathetic and reprehensible as it sounds, but it’s also very much in character with the soulless morass today’s GOP has devolved into. It’s not about lifting people up or making West Virginia better. For a state that sits at or near the bottom of pretty much every critical ranking, you’d think that would be a consideration, but not for these assclowns.

As it is for Republicans everywhere, it’s not about making things better; it’s about making those who aren’t White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual Patriots suffer as much as possible. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Republicans suck—they have nothing of value to offer America anymore except ignorance, hatred, and suffering. All that, and people STILL vote Republican.

What the actual fuck is going on here?

Republican candidates for governor in West Virginia have been competing in a tight race — not only to take over the state’s highest office but also to surpass one another in their commitment to attacking LGBTQ+ rights, in particular, for transgender people.

State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, former state Delegate Moore Capito and businessman Chris Miller have each run a series of ads promising to take stronger action to keep transgender student athletes, particularly transgender girls, out of girl’s and women’s sports and to further restrict access to gender-affirming care for minors. (Another Republican contender, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, has stayed out of the attack ad fray.)

Only a tiny portion of West Virginia’s population is LGBTQ, which means that the LGBTQ community hardly poses a threat to the overwhelmingly straight majority.

It’s OK, y’all; no one’s going to be forcing anything down your throat.

Nevertheless, Republicans will rarely pass on a chance to play the bully, thus the competition to prove who will oppress transgender West Virginians the most.

LGBTQ+ people make up only about 4% of the West Virginia population, according to 2017 demographic data from the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ public policy research center based at the University of California, Los Angeles. Queer and trans West Virginians, however, are overrepresented when it comes to rates of food insecurity, lack of insurance, unemployment and overall poverty levels.

But despite their minuscule populace in the state, GOP gubernatorial candidates have made protecting the state and its children from the “radical transgender agenda” their major talking points to connect with voters.

“Radical transgender agenda?” AYFKM?? If wanting to live as one’s true self in peace without being harassed or oppressed is part of the “radical transgender agenda,” then sure, I suppose the trans community is WAY out of control, eh? I mean, that’s some pretty “out there” shit, if you know what I mean.

For fuck’s sake, the next thing you know, they’ll be demanding to be treated as human beings. What’s up with that?

And while we’re on the subject of treating people like human beings, how about the homeless? ‘Cuz it’s not like we’re treating them like trash or anything. Per

Hemant Mehta

:

[T]he Supreme Court heard a case that centers around how cities should deal with homelessness. One of the most striking revelations, however, may have come from a Christian ministry that insisted the homeless need to be converted or punished.

The case involved the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, where there are more homeless people than available beds in shelters. City leaders have chosen to address the problem, not by building affordable housing or additional shelters but rather by fining people hundreds of dollars for using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes on the streets. When homeless people accrue multiple fines, they can be banned from public property… literally leaving them with nowhere to go. And if they remain in the city, they can be criminally prosecuted.

A previous legal case already declared those kinds of penalties unconstitutional, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. So with the help of an attorney, a group of homeless people in Grants Pass filed a lawsuit against the city, saying local ordinances that punished them for basically existing were illegal. After all, they said, they weren’t choosing to live on the streets. There were no other options available to them.

Grants Pass won its case in lower courts but evidently didn’t win in the manner and style it hoped to (they wanted to dunk on their adversaries?), so they appealed to the Supremes.

The question before the justices is whether the city of Grants Pass should be allowed to criminalize homelessness. Never mind that an affirmative decision would be a travesty of compassion and yet another layer of cruelty for people experiencing homelessness.

Yes, the city of Grants Pass is saying that being homeless isn’t nearly difficult or punishing enough—we believe that the city should be allowed to make it significantly more onerous. Compassion is for losers and Liberals.

Stay classy, eh?

Advocates for people experiencing homelessness in Grants Pass argue that there is a lack of options available to their clients—and they’re not understating the problem.

According to legal briefs, the homeless people only have four options in the city. They can stay at a “sobering center” meant for intoxicated people... which has 12 rooms but no beds. There’s a youth shelter where minors ages 10-17 can stay for up to three days (or more with parental consent). There’s a “warming shelter” that can hold 40 people in freezing weather… but also has no beds.

And then there’s a homeless shelter run by Gospel Rescue Mission.

GRM is a Christian ministry that requires all residents to work for them without pay for “six hours a day, six days a week in exchange for a bunk for 30 days.” They also cannot look for outside work during that month. That’s not all though. They must also attend church every Sunday (from a pre-approved list); Unitarian services are not acceptable. And they have to attend a chapel service twice a day. And they can’t smoke or drink. And they can’t have sex during their stay.

What if you’re disabled or have medical or mental health problems that prevent you from attending church? What if you aren’t Christian? What if you just don’t want to participate in the religious activities? Too bad. You can’t stay at their shelter.

That’s why the plaintiffs argued they had no realistic options in the city.

So GRM gets a supply of virtual slave labor who must attend church (and chapel twice a day) and remain celibate. Oh, and you can’t be disabled, because then you’re unworthy of assistance.

But Jesus loves you.

This cruel, self-righteous hypocrisy is the sort of stuff that drives people away from Christianity.

In cases like these, it’s always interesting to see which groups are filing amicus briefs, making on argument for why the justices should rule one way or the other.

Just looking at religious ministries alone, there’s an incredible number on the side of the homeless. They include the Oregon Quakers; the Los Angeles Catholic Worker; the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Hindus for Human Rights; and the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice.

Writing at Religion News Service, Kevin Nye spoke to leaders of those groups who told him things like, “Criminalizing, exploiting, and hurting poor and unhoused people is an affront to God and to Christianity itself, and to other religious traditions themselves.” The Kairos Center brief explained that “punishing poor and homeless people for the effects of their poverty and homelessness fails to honor the holy nature of creation, and thereby fails society as a whole.” Even the normally arch-conservative USCCB argued that the “Catholic Church, consistent with western tradition, has long taught that the homeless are to be helped, not punished.”

Then you’d have to wonder who could possibly be on the other side of this issue. Who would want to criminalize homelessness and turn those already suffering from any number of issues into criminals, thus increasing their suffering and decreasing the likelihood of them escaping homelessness?

Well, duh….

[T]hat would be Gospel Rescue Mission, the ministry that controls the discriminatory shelter in Grants Pass.

In their brief supporting the city, they argued that the city’s inability to punish the homeless (because of earlier court decisions) “has significantly decreased the number of people who access the Mission’s services,” as if that’s a bad thing.

Municipal public safety laws are a crucial tool in helping the homeless take advantage of available safe shelter resources. Taking away cities’ power to enforce those laws, as the Ninth Circuit has done here, does not benefit the homeless as that court evidently hoped. Instead, it has only hindered the efforts of those in Grants Pass who devote each day to bettering the lives of those facing homelessness.

They’re calling for the city to fine and jail the homeless in the hopes that they become the only alternative for anyone seeking to avoid punishment. When you see yourself as the antidote, you start to root for poison.

GRM likes having a steady supply of slave labor that they can dehumanize and evangelize. Go figure; it’s much easier to balance the books when you don’t have to pay those forced to work for you.

As Mehta points out, there’s no mention of God anywhere in this brief because it’s not a religious argument. How could it be? There’s nothing scriptural about it. GRM is trying to convince the court that its system of slave labor, curtailing personal freedom, and enforced evangelizing is in the best interest of people experiencing homelessness—and they’re best positioned to determine that.

But, as Kevin Nye continues,

It may be well-intentioned, but GRM’s plea raises serious legal and theological questions. If the Rescue Mission—the only option in town—can shelter just 138 people, how can the government criminalize all 1,200 people experiencing homelessness in the city? Do Christian organizations have a theological mandate, or even a justification, for forcing religious programming in exchange for shelter and care? Can the government compel homeless people to stay at a shelter that has strict religious requirements without infringing further on their constitutional rights?

Not being an attorney, I can’t speak to the legal issues in play. But, from a common decency standpoint, it seems that what GRM is requiring of its client in return for “assistance” is a very one-sided transaction that smacks of slavery and lack of agency. In a city that offers so few options to people experiencing homelessness, GRM effectively has its clients over a barrel, and allowing Grants Pass to criminalize homelessness seems a horrific trespass on human compassion.

No human being should be houseless. It does happen, though, and for any number of reasons. No nation with aspirations of calling itself “great” can tolerate a situation where citizens sleep out of doors without offering serious and viable alternatives.

What Grants Pass and GRM offer people experiencing homelessness within their city are not serious, viable, or compassionate options. They serve only to criminalize homelessness, which serves only to exacerbate a social problem the city should be seeking to resolve.

It’s a good day to be a good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual Patriot, eh? Not that I would know.

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