Far-right House Republicans are now using the budget process for anti-LGBTQ+ attacks

YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldbanned from sitebanned from site to politics @lemmy.world – 236 points –
Far-right House Republicans are now using the budget process for anti-LGBTQ+ attacks
lgbtqnation.com
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Lots of people have been saying that this would happen.

They want to attack trans folks so they can attack the gay folks so they can attack the coloured folks....

Now to be fair, have minorities even really tried not to be victims? From what doctors say, if it’s legitimate bigotry, the minority body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. Link for the uninitiated

Given that they think gay and trans people could just, you know, choose to not be, I'm surprised none of them have said that before.

"If you don't like being discriminated against for being non-white, just choose to be white!"

It’s all about getting votes from their ignorant base. I guarantee you they don’t care about any of those things.

My god yes. Liberals have this borderline conspiracy theory that the right has some master plan to enact fascism, kill their "enemies". Ahhh!

No. They don't. They simply going with what works to get votes. That's all that ever has, or ever will, count. Why else this GOP war on voters? They're not looking to take over the country in some masterful coup. They're just trying to hang in, by hook or by crook, because they so goddamned always lose, and their future looks bleaker by the second.

But the left HAS to believe that there's some sort of plan, someone calling the shots. Same reason the COVID nuts arose. They can't face the horror that this is random, organic, unplanned history. "Someone must be controlling all this!"

They're not drilling down trans -> gay -> black -> all-liberals on purpose. That's simply the natural outcome. Go for the smallest, therefore weakest, demographic. Score some wins? Go after the next demographic. Fascism is where it ends, but they're not planning it, it's just the natural outcome of hate and desperation. (I'd argue fascism is already here.)

Imagine a pride of lions with a limited pool of prey. They start with the weak, sick, elderly. Once those targets are gone, move up to the next weakest. Not like the lions have some PLAN, they're merely doing what they have to do to survive.

Let's see who we all think is saying this: "My opponent is weak and stupid, but also powerful and wily!"

Look, the left is nowhere near as shameless in their hypocrisy as the right. Especially not the politicians. But the voters? They're singing the same tune about the opposition.

"Desantis is an idiot, running his own state into the ground! Can't govern a potato factory!"

"Desantis is far smarter than Trump, a truly dangerous man! Hitler 2.0!"

Someone will come along to explain how he's BOTH at once, but I think everyone gets my drift. The default take should be, "Dangerous as hell because they're in a corner trying to survive and, like a lion, they have no morals."

Sorry /u/Pratai@lemmy.ca, didn't mean to unload on your post. Needed it off my chest. It's just all so frustrating when it's all so obvious.

And BTW, y'all are as distracted by the GOPs culture war as their voters are. Nothing matters, NOTHING, when they're actively taking our votes away. We slam-dunk win ALL of these battles if we're allowed to vote.

Yep. Pretty much. There is a clearly define deference between the politician’s agenda, and the voter’s agenda. And that difference is belief. The politician doesn’t believe the bullshit. They’re selling it for votes.

The voter DOES believe the bullshit. Any they’re clearly buying it for the promise of safety.

The military not flying the pride flag isn't an attack.

The government should fly the american flag, and maybe their state flags. They shouldn't be waving some government endorsed religious symbols. If the pride flag can be waved, what's to stop MAGA flags from being waved at the white house and in military bases?

I'm mainly with ya, but the pride flag is religious? Did you mean to say that?

When your religion is just bigotry wearing pious makeup, anything tolerant is perceived as an attack on that religion.

I mean not really. We just don't care for public services and funding that is supposed to teach our kids math, instead teach them how to socially transition.

If you want to transition back and forth 100 times, we're fine with that. Don't take our money and teach our kids how to transition then act like you're 'being attacked'

If you want your kids to remain uneducated, pull them out of school and teach them everything you know.

Don't mandate bigotry just because your church demands it.

It essentially seems like the LGBTQIA2S+ has turned to a religion. So yeah, the flag is equivalent to a religious symbol.

Well, they seem to have figured out kindness to others better than Christianity has in 2000 years or so.

The started by attacking trans folks, then they'll attack the gays, then they'll be back to attacking BIPOC. That's how these turds roll...

who is 'they' and how are they attacking trans folks?

Anyone that is removing the rights of marginalized people. As a reminder you folks in the states only have conservative political parties so both of them can and do trample on rights all the time. There is no "left or right" in the States.

Shocking literally no one.

Let me be very clear—Republicans will use the power of the purse and the power of the subpoena to hold the swamp accountable.

-- Kevin McCarthy (Jan 15th, 2023 during his Speaker acceptance speech.)

The Speaker of the House literally said he was going to do this very thing. Why would anyone be surprised for him to do the thing he said he was going to do?

They haven't done shit about "the swamp", look at GOP net worth in their first term. DNC too but not quite as across the board

Gay rights will end up being gone if they could get rid of them. MTG is the most extreme.

Is she the most extreme or is she just the loudest? Because I would bet you there are people in congress who are to her right but keep quiet about it.

Mary Miller comes to mind. Illinois Nazis man.

People hear I'm on the Illinois border with Indiana on the Indiana side and say, "well at least you can get legal weed with a quick drive." No, because it's Central Illinois and "ain't nobody gonna sell no wakky T-bakky in my town," so if I want to get it that way, I have to drive 90 minutes. Chicago, very liberal. The rest of Illinois, Trump country.

For real, the state is saved by having Chicago in it, otherwise it'd be as much of a shithole state as the surrounding ones.

As someone who's traveled the whole state, very accurate. Outside of Chicago and the collar counties, the only saving grace is Champaign pretty much. I do like Peoria since I lived there, but it's a shithole

They have been using budget shenanigans to get their way for years, so this is only surprising if they are just getting to anti LGBTQ+ funding now.

Conservative cowardice in action. How much more can they do to prove to their voting base that they’re generating votes using fear?

Under the amendments, the military will no longer pay for gender-affirming medical care for transgender troops, allow the pride flag to fly at military installations, or pay for personnel to travel for abortions if they live in a state that restricts them. None of these social issues have anything to do with Defense spending

Although I hate these alt-right house members, I'm confused at this statement.

They claim that the right is amending the bill so the military will no longer provide funding for the stated procedures and disallowing the pride flag, but then they say none of these issues have anything to do with defense spending. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it seems if the military is providing those things, it would come out of their budget?

They're saying, "These are social issues that the military has no business paying for."

They would have a point, except medical care isn't a social issue.

Tax payers and their representatives can choose how their money is spent, yes.

The Republican Party looks at this and sees them playing politics, but all it really shows is how insane they've gotten.

Trans healthcare is what psychiatrists and psychologic experts prescribe. Medical professionals. It makes complete sense for the military to follow that guidance. If Republican politics take issue with that, they can go inject some ivermectin that their "medical experts" tout.

Abortion is more contentious, I'll give that to you, but the military has a very high incentive to ensure service members have continuous access to abortion, and it's in every state's best interest. Without Roe, several myopic states have banned abortion, and that creates an issue. If military service members don't want to stay in a state like that because they're concerned about rape and/or pregnancy complications, what's the military to do? If they don't honor requests to move assignments, the service members might outright quit. And right now the military is currently short on service members.

To attract and retain talent, the military has to provide abortion access. Otherwise, they'll lose valuable people and some states may have woefully under equipped bases. That's a national security concern, and it also hurts the states with those bases. Eventually, they may have to outright abandon facilities in anti abortion states because it's a net detriment. I'm not entirely sure the states in question can take that economic hit.

Republicans have chosen positions that are extremely unpopular and picked wedge issues that go against medical science. They're now reaping the consequences of that. The plurality of the country blamed Republicans for the debt ceiling crisis. Somehow, I don't think they're going to change their minds when Republicans do the exact same thing with the budget and govt funding.