Cis-Heteronormative Christian Fragility: Why The Lack of Self-Confidence?

Why do they feel they are doomed if they can’t make the government enforce and impose their views on us all?

I’m just thinking out loud here, so bear with me as I take you down the rabbit hole of my brain’s inner workings. I’ll present you the breadcrumbs to follow my thought process.

I was in the middle of doing some research on the Supreme Court. In particular, I was taking a closer and deeper look at Justice Alito.

In case you missed it, he has now joined the Justice Thomas club of “unreported luxury trips with billionaire.” Gee, who saw that coming? Oops, broke the dang sarcasm meter again.

Here’s the ProPublica article: “Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before The Court.”

Actually, I yawned at that. I mean who was surprised? After all, there was the news earlier in June that Thomas and Alito had requested and received an “extension” on filing mandatory financial disclosure forms. When I saw that, I had to chuckle. You only need an extension when you’re figuring out how to get out from under some trouble.

If you are wondering what the hell any of this has to do with anything regarding LGBTQ issues, stay with me. Follow my breadcrumbs.

So, I yawned at the ProPublica article on Alito.

What I did not yawn at but instead found extremely interesting was that:

In a highly unusual move, Alito preemptively disputed the nature of the report before it published Tuesday night, authoring an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal …

He wrote a pre-buttal. His op-ed was entitled “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.” That is so Alito. You should read it, as it is written in classic Alito style. That is to say, written like somebody with a corncob up his butt. No, that is not the LGBTQ connection here, just a colorful idiom. Ahem.

But seriously, Alito is always extremely combative, defensive in an offensive way, and exuding the clear belief that he is the victim of persecution, unfair attack, and — dare I say it? — a witch hunt. And that is just in his Supreme Court opinions! Never mind when he gives a speech or writes an op-ed like this piece of crap, where he ramps up his insufferable defensive and self-righteous victimhood schtick to unbearable levels.

Methinks he doth protest too much.

Today, I was wandering through the mall. (Follow my breadcrumbs, stay with me.) I was trying to take a break from politics, take a break from researching our Supreme Catholic Court.

I smiled at window displays in various stores of various versions of rainbows. Some just had an unobtrusive couple of small rainbow stickers on their glass, like a quiet little nod of quiet respect. Others had large rainbow signs. One had a rainbow with the words, “All are welcome here.” Another said, “We support LGBTQ.” I am in a deep red state, folks, so this was really pretty cool to see.

As I did my middle-aged woman mall walker thing (hey, it’s better than getting rained on in a park, walking in goose poop, and getting assaulted by way-too-friendly dogs, so don’t laugh) and was smiling at those signs, my mind still kept drifting to our Supreme Catholic Court and the Christian Dominionist Republican Party. I thought about the contrast. I thought about our (LGBTQ) confident pride versus their complaints that people are being mean to them. Alito particularly likes to complain about the news media being mean to him. Poor little fella. So, he had to write a whiny pre-buttal against investigative journalists doing their job as the Fourth Estate.

I kept thinking about the contrast. The firm and steady confidence of “my peeps” in the LGBTQ community that “love” will win in the long run versus the apparent lack of self-confidence displayed by conservative Christians constantly crying about their victimhood in so-called progressive America.

I thought about what I kept coming across time and again. The same lines are being mouthed either rudely by Justice Alito and Justice Thomas, crazily by looney-tunes Ginni Thomas, dully with the personality of a wet mop by Mike Pence, snidely by Darth Santis … all Republicans with varying degrees of anger, snarkiness, venom or victimhood echo the same talking points:

Christianity is under attack! Liberals are indoctrinating kids to be atheists! LGBTQ people are grooming and corrupting kids! What this country needs is a return to its foundation: Christianity.

Under attack, eh?

Well, that is to some degree true in the sense of Christian dogma being challenged in the realm of ideas, and some might call that “attack.” I have thus been “attacking” Christianity off and on in my writing. Mostly I just critique the overreach where they infringe on the personal liberties of human beings as human beings. I compose the occasional diatribe about institutional Christian patriarchy and misogyny. I attack the hypocrisy of a religion of “love” attacking the “love” of LGBTQ. So, yeah, I do “attack” them just a wee bit.

They definitely attack us (liberals and LGBTQ), calling us Satanists, baby killers, pedophiles, etc. This is asymmetrical warfare, not exactly tit for tat. We make reasoned arguments while they just spit in our faces. I think if anyone has cause to launch into a grievance screed over being attacked, I think it us.

That, however, is not my point.

And yes, I am finally getting to the point. My title.

Cis-heteronormative Christian fragility: Why the lack of self-confidence?

So, here is the thing. Whiny Republican Christians (liberal Christians are not a problem, by the way, since they are quite sanguine, kind, and charitable people) want the government to tilt the scales in their favor. Justice Alito tilted the scales in favor of the Catholic view of abortion. If Justice Alito and Justice Thomas get the chance — and they well might someday — they will tilt the scales in favor of their Catholic homophobia and roll back our right to marry, perhaps roll back our right to have any rights at all.

Republican Christians will pass laws to enforce their view that transgender people cannot, should not, and will not exist, if they get their way.

Texas Christian Republicans tried to pass a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. They didn’t succeed, but they are not going to stop trying.

They are desperately putting all this effort into imposing their beliefs, their attitudes, their religion with the full weight, force, and authority of the government.

Why? I mean really, what ever happened to the notion of a “marketplace of ideas?” May the best ideas win. Nobody would — or could — stop Christians from preaching their gospel, expounding their ideas, and seeking converts. Do they think their ideas are so weak, so unpersuasive, that the only way they can survive is to enlist the government to impose them on us all and abolish any other ideas or viewpoints?

Why do they have so little faith in their own kids?

I mean, really, do they think their children are such mindless, vacuous little numbskulls, that the mere mention of non-Christian ideas will immediately cause them to turn away from Christianity? Do they really think that if little Joey sees and hears a drag queen reading a story at a library, little Joey will run home, raid his mom’s purse for her make-up, steal her high-heeled shoes, and start singing Judy Garland show tunes while wearing a pink boa?

Do they really think their beliefs and views and ideas are so weak, they cannot win in a marketplace of ideas, and so they must have government intervene, to silence other ideas and promote theirs?

Is that the only way “Christianity” as a set of beliefs and principles survives? Is it otherwise doomed in their eyes if left to defend itself without government help?

I don’t think Christianity as a set of ideas is doomed. I think there is much in Christian philosophy to recommend itself. As I said, liberal Christians are nice, friendly, charitable, generous, and kind people. I encountered several of them at Pride. Several churches had booths there, and these were not baited traps to lure people in, ultimately, to conversion therapy. Nope. Not at all.

One pastor was clearly as gay as gay could be, and I loved his outfit: He looked like a cross between a priest and a guitarist in a mariachi band. I am sorely tempted to show up at his church to see what is up.

No, in the marketplace of ideas, Christianity is not doomed.

So why do so many of these cis-heteronormative Christian Republicans sound so desperate, aggrieved, and paranoid? Why do they act and sound like they are on a last stand at the Alamo?

With some politicians, it is of course just a pose, just a fundraising strategy. However, what about people like Justice Alito? He has got his job for life and nobody can touch him. He is under no binding ethics rules. He has tremendous power and is part of a conservative super-majority on the court that will dominate our country for decades to come with their Catholic Christian decisions.

Why the whininess and bitching and moaning, and never-ending complaints about being a “victim”?

Hey, Alito, you want to know what a victim is? Talk to the parents of a transgender child, a family who had to pack up and move out of their state — whether they could afford it or not, and most people don’t have billionaire friends to give them a free seat on a private plane. They were forced to move to a different state just for the sake of the health, happiness, and well-being of their transgender child. Methinks they have way more to complain about when it comes to persecution than you.

Stop the whining, Christians. Really. Just stop.