Essay – Luther Rose Colored Glasses

Where fools tread in the bible

A long time ago I had a boyfriend who had grown up Seventh-Day Adventist. One time I responded to something he said in a playful jest: “oh you silly fool.” He got very angry with me and told me I must never call anyone a “fool”, lest I be subject to the fires of hell. I don’t remember exactly how I responded to that, but 21-year old me, with no self-regulation, probably told him he was being silly, that if Jesus said something like that I’d know about it, but he assured me it was in the bible and I should watch myself. He was right: the end of Matthew 5:22 reads, “[If] you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Why hadn’t I know about that little rule? While I had grown up in the church, my denomination, the Lutheran Church in America, had been one of the more formal protestant ones, more inclined toward conservativism in worship but liberality and inclusivity in social life. Women had been pastors in our church for over fifteen years and marriage, far from being a sacrament, could end in divorce should it be what was best for the two parties. We had events with dancing in the Community Hall and wine for communion and beer was a staple at any nighttime potluck. The bible I was had been raised with and taught in Sunday school was one in which God wanted people to be happy, rather than trapped in miserable lives. Everyone sinned and everyone who asked for forgiveness received it, regardless of what the sin entailed. The unpleasant bits of the Gospels (except, of course, the crucifixion) were generally glossed over. We were not biblical literalists.

But my boyfriend had grown up in a literalist denomination. In fact, one which was so literal that they took Saturday as the 7^th day of the week to mean that was the Sabbath and not Sunday (never minding that in Europe, Monday is the first day of the week and Sunday is the 7^th…but I digress.) And there it was, staring me in the face, in Matthew 5:22. Jesus himself said it. Don’t say to anyone ‘you fool’ because hell was waiting. And as oddly specific as that seemed to me, I couldn’t deny the evidence laid before me. The word of God… and not that God from the Old Testament who sent rains to flood the earth and fire to rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah… but Jesus Christ himself. I asked God for forgiveness and apologized to him and never called him or anyone else a fool again.

But eventually we broke up, and I, becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Christian faith, with its weird little specific rules like “don’t call someone a fool,” stopped trying to reconcile my sexual attraction to men with what I read in scripture. Why bother with church at all, even gay-affirming churches like MCC? The bible said what it said. I’m sure I could find faith somewhere else that didn’t rely on such a faulty narrative.

Some twenty years later, after my time in the wilderness, I gave the church another chance, and with that, I gained a more mature understanding of scripture. And doing a little research, I’ve found that this very verse itself is an example of the pitfalls of conventional modern biblical literalism.

A fool? Or a fool?

Words evolve. The word “fool” has several different meanings:

a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person
a jester or clown, especially one retained in a noble household.
a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding
a person devoted to a particular activity: “a fool for love”

Most dictionaries will list meanings in order of use as they have researched it. While several dictionaries online have different orders and include other archaic meanings, they all have the same 1^st definition here: “a person who acts unwisely or imprudently; a silly person” or “a person lacking in judgment or prudence.” This was the definition that 21 year old me would have been using, while playfully mocking my boyfriend. My personal definition probably would have been (and still be) “carelessly unaware.”

However, as recently as the start of the 20^th century, the primary definition of “fool” was similar to definition 3 above. As Webster’s 1913 dictionary reads for the first definition: “One destitute of reason, or of the common powers of understanding; an idiot; a natural.” The second definition, while approaching our modern understanding, is still somewhat bad: “A person deficient in intellect; one who acts absurdly, or pursues a course contrary to the dictates of wisdom; one without judgment; a simpleton; a dolt.”

Very few people would describe a “fool” under definition 3 above today. The word has mostly lost that abrasive and ableist connotation. Yet, as recently as 2021, the NRSVUE (New Revised Standard Version-Updated Edition) translates the passage from Matthew 5:21 as “’You fool,’” using the same English word as in the King James Version over 400 years ago.

Language matters

Of course, the Gospels weren’t even written in English, but instead, Greek. In fact, the word translated as “fool” in that passage is the Greek word, μωρέ (mōre), an adjective meaning dull, stupid, or sluggish. It is specifically understood as a characteristic deficiency of intelligence that is related to birth defect or injury. It is the root word for “moron”, which a few lesser known modern translations use instead. It is a definition which does not quite jibe with the common understanding of the word “fool” today, but does make sense in the context of what Jesus’s words were. Μωρέ can be found additionally in Mt. 7:26; 23:17; 25:2,3,8; 1 Cor 1:25,27; 3:18; 4:10; 2 Tim 2:23; and Titus 3:9.

The deficiency of English becomes apparent because another, more frequently used Greek word, ἄφρων (áphrōn), also gets translated as “foolish” or “fool”. While both μωρέ and ἄφρων both get translated the same into English, the words are not at all the same. ἄφρων is a word meaning lacking perspective to act prudently, or short-sighted. It is derived from the prefix α- (without) and -φρεν (inner perspective to regulate behavior). This definition is much closer to the more common understanding of “fool,” and can be found at the end of the parable of the rich farmer, in Luke 12:20, where God tells him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Ἄφρων can also be found in Lk 11:40; Rom 2:20; 1 Cor 15:36; 2 Cor 11:16 (2); 2 Cor 11:19; 2 Cor 12:6; 12:11; Eph 5:17; and 1 Peter 2:15.

But because of the choices by English translators, we have Luke’s Jesus having God saying the very same thing that Matthew’s Jesus tells us will make someone “liable to the hell of fire.” The two words are not the same at all.

Both words are also found considerable times in the Septuagint, the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek from the time of Jesus, with ἄφρων a bit more than twice as common as μωρέ. They don’t seem to be distributed evenly, with the vast majority of μωρέ are in the deuterocanonical book of Sirach, while other books opt for the use of ἄφρων. However, Psalm 94:8 (93:8) of the Septuagint uses both: “Understand, O dullest of the people; fools, when will you be wise?” There are a far greater variety of Hebrew words that are found as either μωρέ or ἄφρων, but it appears in nearly all the cases (excepting Sirach) there was an intentional choice to use ἄφρων over μωρέ. And generally there were different Hebrew words that became translated as either Greek word.

What did Jesus actually mean?

Besides, Jesus isn’t just talking about calling someone a fool. Matthew 5:21-22 in the Common English Bible (CEB) reads as follows:

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘You idiot,’ they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell.

This isn’t simply a passage about calling someone a bad name. It’s about casting insults about their intelligence in anger. And what’s interesting is that while the original text is in Greek, the word translated as “You idiot” is Ῥακά (Rhaka), which is not Greek at all but Aramaic (Syriac: ܪܝܩܐ ;Hebrew: רֵיקָא). What does the word mean? As a noun it designates “a vain or worthless person” but in its usage in rabbinic writing it differs very little from “fool”. Therefore the Greek here has Jesus repeating the same word in both Aramaic and Greek.

But Jesus didn’t speak Greek, but instead, Aramaic. So if this is an authentic saying of Jesus, it’s very likely that he said “Ῥακά” and, having been familiar with the Greek word, “μωρέ”, said that afterwards for emphasis. He was making a very specific point about calling people names in anger. That either name spat in anger would subject the person saying them to eschatological judgment.

Who’s fooling who here?

But why delve so deeply into this? I discovered the difference while doing a text study for the Luke text above, and couldn’t stop thinking about it. And this is just one of many examples where translators decided to make a choice that created an ambiguity in translation.

Scripture should always be more deeply assessed before people decide certain meanings of things, and one should never assume the English is perfectly representative of the underlying Greek. Words like “fool”, which has multiple meanings can make such a difference in context, that unless you study the Greek, you lose the actual meaning of something Jesus said.

It underscores the flimsy platform that biblical literalists stand on when making statements about “what’s in the bible.” Is it willful ignorance?

I’d call it foolish! ?

I was groomed

In my post entitled ‘The libel of “gay grooming”’ I wrote about my personal experiences in my adolescence with regard to “age appropriate” sexual encounters. Yes, the implications by omission are there, I had a series of sexual encounters that weren’t age appropriate.

When I was 16 years old, and after my first sexual encounter with another boy, on the last day of summer school between what was supposed to be my Junior year and my Senior Year, I was hitchhiking, and a man picked me up in his car. As he was dropping me off, he propositioned me. I barely registered what he had said and that he had actually said it, but I had hormones raging and I was looking for more sexual encounters, he was fairly young (28) and attractive; so, I said “yes”.

After we were done, he had me give him my number, telling me he’d love to get together with him again and to make sure to answer the phone. I was besotted and couldn’t stop obsessing over him but it was several months before he called me. This began a number of encounters over the next couple years until my 18^th birthday. Shortly after that I came out and the encounters stopped.

I was in my forties and learning about online grooming when I finally took a hard look at what had happened to me. Our relationship had telltale signs of grooming. Secrecy. Undue influence. Over-interest in my life. Timing his contacts with me to be spaced out enough where I was most easily emotionally manipulatable. He kept tabs on me, but insisted I not contact him lest it cause problems in his relationship. Most telling of all, he withheld information on resources and organizations that he knew could help orient me in finally coming out, despite the fact that I asked him about them.

Although I was old enough to be sexually active, I was emotionally immature at 16, and had low self-esteem, so I was a prime target for it. It left me with an even lower sense of value, for although he would flatter me and tell me that he loved me, he would leave me for months without any contact whatsoever. And for most of that time I had no other outlet.

So I have a strong opinion on grooming. The harm that this relationship caused me affected my relationships for decades. What should have been a time for exploring my sexuality among my peers was replaced by my needing to be with and constantly waiting for the affections of someone much older than me.

I didn’t write about this in the previous entry because talking about my experience distracts from the core issues of that entry, and my experience is too long and involved to talk about it there. Yes, there are gay groomers, and here is my experience with one. However, what happened to me happens to way more teenage girls than boys.

The abuse of 16 and 17 year olds is often left unreported mostly because we, the adolescents, believe we are making a choice about our bodies and don’t consider ourselves victims in any way. Despite the fact that we know that the adults responsible for us wouldn’t understand it, we manage to keep it secret.

Because even though we are sexual beings at that age, our brains haven’t quite caught up to us. Kids these age should know about sex, and should be allowed to make their own decisions about having it. But they should also be taught to be wary of older people who are only out for their own interest.

I ran into Sandy one more time at a bar when I was 19 and we got together for old times sake. He had stopped keeping tabs on me, but he admitted to me that he intentionally didn’t tell me about gay life in Columbia, because he didn’t want me getting wrapped up in certain places. He wore a condom that time, because I’d already been sexually active and he didn’t trust I hadn’t gotten the AIDS virus (it was 1986). The sex was mediocre, and not at all like I was expecting or remembered. But by then I wasn’t depending on him for my entire sexual existence. I was free to make choices, and my choice wasn’t him. We never saw each other again.

The libel of “gay grooming”

What is the gay grooming libel?

Recently, a wave of attacks, propaganda and legislation attacking LGBTQ people has washed over the United States using a very specific buzzword: grooming. These attacks have targeted politicians, schools and teachers, non-profit organizations as well as companies with pro-LGBTQ stances, using the implication that allowing children to be exposed to queer identities or relationships is equal to “grooming” them. The word itself is at present a right-wing buzzword used to encourage state Republicans to propose and enact anti-LGBTQ legislation and to motivate an electorate to support those politicians in doing so.

But while this degrading stereotype about LGBTQ people is presently prominent in the public dialogue, the false perception that LGBTQ people, and in particular gay men are predators of children is not new. It is rooted in 1) a specifically religious concept that LGBTQ people are inherently evil because of a handful of biblical interpretations related to sexual activity among same-sex partners. And 2) because two people of the same assigned sex at birth cannot produce children, that same-sex attraction is somehow contrary to natural law and/or evolution. Therefore 3) in order for specifically lesbians and gay men to “make more” of ourselves we must “recruit” children at a young age.

There are faithful Christian and Jewish responses to counter 1) and a wealth of science that disprove 2). It is the current manifestation of 3), the grooming libel, that is fanning the flames of the harmful legislation, violent threats and disruptive protests that we are increasingly hearing about today.

What is Grooming?

The term “grooming” is thrown about deliberately to create horror. Make no mistake, actual child grooming is an appalling and heinous activity that has severe and lifetime emotional and mental consequences on the victim’s mind. The well-cited lead paragraph on Wikipedia is as follows:

Child grooming is befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child, and sometimes the family, to lower the child’s inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. Child grooming is also regularly used to lure minors into various illicit businesses such as child trafficking, child prostitution, cybersex trafficking, or the production of child pornography.
Child grooming, Wikipedia

“Child” in this definition, may include anyone up to the age of majority of 18, which is an important distinction, because the vast majority of reported victims are adolescents.

The statistics of child grooming in the United States are difficult to determine because many cases go unreported. However, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports that there were more than 19,000 cases of child sexual exploitation reported to their CyberTipline in 2018, representing a 36% increase from the year before. The majority of victims were between the ages of 12 and 17, although almost 1,000 were under the age of 12.

In 2021, there were over 44,000 reported instances of Online Enticement of Children for Sexual Acts. While the increase may be a result of better reporting and more widespread knowledge of the CyberTipline, the total number is nevertheless a reminder that children still remain at risk of sexual predators.

That’s what makes the current propaganda against LGBTQ people so harmful, not only to the target population, but also to actual victims of child grooming; because it waters down the definition of grooming and makes it harder for actual victims of child grooming to come forward, as they may fear they will not be taken seriously.

Where does the Gay Grooming Libel come from?

While different myths about “homosexual behavior” have existed throughout history, modern negative stereotypes of gay people found root in the early part of the 20^th century, about the time when advancements in psychology and modern brought the first glimmers of public visibility of LGBTQ people in America. During the sixties and the sexual revolution, in the midst of the civil rights movement, gay people began to be more visible while police raids on bars and popular outdoor cruise areas are regularly featured in the newspaper blotters; providing fuel to the stereotype of the perverse, predatory gay man.

As gays and lesbians began to see some protections against discrimination in the 70s, moral outrage from self-designated “family organizations” such as Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign were quick to depict gay people as molesters and predators in order to fight against anti-discriminatory victories. Notable in California was the (thankfully failed) 1978 ballot initiative to take gay teachers out of education and prevent them, as the initiative’s promoter Senator John Briggs said, “from influencing and teaching our young.”

Despite the failed initiative, gay people remained unworthy second-class citizens, as evidenced by the Reagan administrations lack of response to the AIDS epidemic, because in conservatives’ eyes, it was only affecting the dregs of society. Major motion pictures such as Cruising and Making Love, furthered the perception of gay men as either sexually consumed or as an active threat to traditional marriage. Widely circulated pamphlets such as Ethan Persoff’s Homosexuality: Legitimate, Alternative, Deathstyle promoted the idea that gay men are dirty, disease ridden, addicted to sex and out to get children.

The stereotype continued to be publicized through the 90s and 00s, while moral crusaders fought against both the right to adopt and raise children and the right to be married. However, as positive depictions of LGBTQ people in movies and television began to dislodge the negative ones from earlier years, public attitudes toward us began to change for the better, even in conservative circles. Widely visible in the 2016 presidential campaign were signs promoting “GAYS FOR TRUMP,” and that year the GOP candidate for president received an unprecedented 14% support among LGBTQ people.

Along with the election wins of the 2010s and the Supreme Court decision in “Obergefell v. Hodges” there remained an underlying, mostly quiet resentment among the right-wing fundamentalist crowd who felt imposed upon by a rather progressive shift in public policy with regard to LGBTQ rights. This is almost certainly a contributing factor to the shift in the 10s when the moral outrage turned from gay and lesbian people to trans people, and in particular trans women. The same idea that gay men and women were somehow recruiting America’s youth to be new gay men and women, so were trans women seeking out your little boys to transform them into new trans women but also seeking to use women’s bathrooms so they can prey upon your little girls. Note the contradiction inherited in those beliefs, as there nevertheless exist trans men, who were less of a target but were also expected to use women’s rooms while also nevertheless accused of preying upon little girls. This discrepancy in the targeting of trans women verses trans men was a result of sexist attitudes about gender, roles, and the common perception that a masculinized girl is a tomboy but a feminized boy is an abomination.

Since 2019, the anti-trans narrative has expanded to include drag queens. While the first drag queen story hour began in 2015, it wasn’t widely known outside San Francisco and queer and ally circles, in 2019 the events had spread to other major metropolitan areas, and conservative sources began to report on them, and a white nationalist group called “American Identity Movement” disrupted one in New Orleans. At the same time a video of a drag queen performing “Baby Shark” for a 2 year old surfaced and went viral, leading to moral outrage. However, along with everything else, the COVID pandemic shut them down in 2020.

As the world began to open up again, so did Drag Queen Story Hour, along with far-right ideologues pushing the narrative that children are being indoctrinated to become trans people. Additionally, as drag queens are more often than not, gay men, the grooming narrative is being extended once again to include other LGBTQ people.

The concept of grooming has become so watered down in far-right-wing circles that it includes even affection between two people of the same sex in front of children, as if children are traumatized by even seeing that gay relationships exist.

How are Queer People Made?

But the indoctrination of young people by LGBTQ people is a myth. While people who are gender or sexuality fluid exist, and there are some people who profess to have chosen to be trans or gay, these are a staggering minority.

Full disclosure: my experience with trans identity is limited. While I consider myself non-binary presenting with my sex assigned at birth, I haven’t fully explored what that means, and as I don’t suffer from body dysphoria (except perhaps where my weight is concerned) and for all intents and purposes, I am cis male. My non-binariness is primarily about pronouns and comfort level. My preferred pronoun is they/them/their but I accept other pronouns as they happen. I also don’t believe any trait is inherently “masculine” or “feminine” and that gender roles are primarily socialized. And while our species has evolved with males having larger and stronger forms than females, these are simply averages, in both assigned birth genders there are a large enough percentage of outliers to dispute any idea that “strength” is male and “roundness” is female and other common assumptions.

However much gender is a social construct, it is nevertheless a construct that exists, and some people are not comfortable with their assigned genders and that some people do feel gender dysphoria. And in my experience, for the huge majority, feelings of discrepancy between one’s self and their assigned gender start long before puberty, much the same way that same-sex attraction does for most of us.

In every study that I’ve come across, there are no family traits more common among men who are primarily attracted to men except for family size. And gay men only tend to come from larger families. A boy in a family of six children is a little bit more likely to become primarily attracted to men than a boy who is an only child. But there are plenty of only children who grew up to be gay men.

Furthermore, this slight advantage is the same no matter whether the child was raised as an only child or not. An boy who grew up as the sole child of adopted parents who came from a family of six is just as likely to be primarily attracted to men as one who grew up with the family of six.

In these studies, no other trait is necessarily more common among gay men. Not single parent versus married parents. Not birth order. Not number of sisters versus number of brothers. Not race or ethnicity. Not urban born versus rural born (although the decision to come out may be impacted). Some families seem predisposed to having gay children but there’s nothing that seems to be common among them.

Even tribal cultures where there is no gay visibility whatsoever cannot actually claim some kind of immunity to there being same-sex attraction among their males. I researched “homosexuality among the Maasai” a few years ago and found two articles that seemed to contradict each other. One article, which interviewed tribesmen in a Maasai village, when asked about it, said that there was no word for it, same-sex attraction was a concept alien to them. Another article, however, explained that lack of visibility. Gay migrants from Masaai have found their way to Nairobi, where being gay is a difficult life but not unsustainable. The conclusion from this is that yes, gay people emerge from the Maasai and find their way out of an impossible life at home to a reasonable life elsewhere, having left their families of origin unaware of why they’ve left or possible silently expelled by them.

What Turned Me Gay?

Gay children come from straight parents (with some exceptions). While nobody’s account is necessarily typical, I’ve heard similar accounts from many other gay men as to my own.

I grew up 3^rd of 4 children. Growing up, I didn’t know any adult gay people; in fact, I didn’t know any other gay people at all until I was in high school. I can remember being interested in boys bodies, but not interested in playing with other boys around the age of 7 or 8. My parents separated not long after.

I remember seeing Anita Bryant’s crusade on the news as a child as well, and learned all the myths circulating at time about same-sex attraction, that it was evil, that it was unnatural. Billy Crystal’s character on Soap was the closest thing to a positive adult gay role model that existed, but his character was tragic and sexless.

When puberty hit, my sexual orientation was evident. I dreamed about boys. I thought about boys. I fantasized to boys. I masturbated to the thought of boys. And I kept it all to myself because if anyone knew about it they would hate me and make fun of me and send me away.

There was nothing “luring” me to the “gay lifestyle.” I was bullied for being a “sissy” when I was younger, so I socialized myself to be the opposite of what a “sissy” was. Any of my classmates in high school that were perceived to be gay were mocked and/or bullied themselves, and the last thing I wanted to do was associate with them.

I was a teenager who had nothing but negative associations with same-sex attractions, but when I closed my eyes, I thought about men. I had sex with girls several times and every time it was a disaster. At 16, when I had my first appropriately aged sexual encounter with a boy everything was perfect but it only happened once and we had to keep it a secret. It would be at least a year before I had another appropriately aged sexual encounter with another boy. (There were other encounters, see post entitled “I was groomed“.)

Whatever it is that makes men gay takes place long before our adult hormones begin. The explanation that I find most compelling, is that the drive toward same sex attraction is the combination of one or several “trigger genes” and certain hormones during pregnancy.

I’m very careful in my language here though. I refer to men who are primarily attracted to men. Many studies of sexuality have been done, and the Kinsey studies from the early 20^th century continue to have value today. That our sexuality is on a scale, not binary. And while the majority of people fall on one end of the scale or another—Kinsey’s scale is from 0 to 6, 0 being totally attracted to the opposite sex and 6 being totally attracted to the same sex—many people fall in between.

Which is there are people who have had sex with men who have “found Christ” and foresworn their sexuality and have had meaningful sexual relationships with their wives. They haven’t changed anything, the sexual attraction toward the opposite sex, for them, has always been there to some degree. The same reason some of those ex-gay relationships inevitably fail. Because for them, it’s not there and never has been and no amount of prayer will make it there.

Personally, I am a 5. Both at the end of high school and a couple of years later I had fulfilling sexual encounters with women. However, in both cases, men were present. And in neither case were the women particularly attractive to me physically or otherwise. There are women I’ve been physically attracted to, and I probably could have, at one time, engaged in sex with them, but it’s not something that I’m lacking as I also desire to retain a meaningful connection to my sexual partners, and I’m not romantically inclined toward women at all.

Because relationships are not simply about sexual attraction, they’re about romantic partnership as well. Romance is the first thing we learn as children when we see our parents and other adults in the world. Not sex.

Yes, but isn’t gay all about sex?

Part of the grooming libel is that “exposing children to same-sex relationships is grooming because same-sex relationships are only about sex and therefore it’s exposing children to sex.” That’s not what grooming is. It’s exposing children to sex, people who are incapable of consent, whether it be indecent material or nudity, and it’s the same difference whether the sex they’re exposed to is heterosexual, homosexual or self-gratifying.

Why does difference matter? Because in recent years awareness of child grooming has grown in the media, and it’s an easily accessible touch word with readily established negative connotations. Saying “gay people are exposing children to sex” is much more easily refutable.

Because men or women kissing or holding hands or hugging is not sex. Men dressing up as drag queens is not sex. Trans people are just people who are trying to live their lives in their gender of choice and has nothing to do with sex.

But underscoring this insidious libel of grooming is the idea of indoctrination, which is where the real fear is. It’s not necessarily a belief that letting children see adult healthy (or unhealthy) gay relationships or trans people in the media or in person is going to traumatize them or turn them gay or trans: because there’s no evidence to support it, that’s just part of the libel. It’s that children will grow up with the idea that gay relationships are acceptable and that trans people are okay. And if they believe that, how can they believe our faith or how can they support our politics or how can they believe anything we tell them?

They’re already losing. Even among evangelicals, a majority of Millennials support same-sex marriage. And more of today’s kids are being raised by Millennials. And the grooming libel is just the latest volley in what they perceive as a culture battle, and is supplanting the previous moral outrage over Critical Race Theory. Because conservatives are stuck with the idea of a culture war, and they know the’re losing. So they have to develop a bad guy, and whether it’s immigrants, black people, LGBTQ people, or whoever the next target to bring people into a state of fear, their goal is to drive votes to increase disproportionate representation to bring us fully out of a Democracy and into a Constitutional Republic.

The grooming narrative is a volley in a broader “culture war” being planned and fought by the far-right. It’s defamation against LGBTQ people, reinventing a libel that has roots deep in American history in times when simply being gay would get you jailed or killed. It is designed to divide and conquer the American left, and is one among several organized efforts by the far-right to secure control of American government, despite a climate of public opinion that is fairly solidly against them.

Title photo credit “Drag Queen Story Hour – August 24, 2019” Flickr: City of West Hollywood, photo credit Jonathan Moore. CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0