A Look At Trump's Playbook, Project 2025, And Its Connections To Systemic Religious Stigma Against LGBTQ+ People
The Heritage Foundation has 900+ pages of poison to show Trump exactly how Christian Nationalism (not the love of God) should be installed if he wins again.
In high school, I was part of our Youth in Government club and loved it. When I became a right-wing ex-gay activist, I loved it. Now that I am grown up, not in a cult, and sane (mostly), I hate politics! Yet when Project 2025 was brought to my attention, I remembered something that I don’t see anyone else mentioning: an unholy alliance, I believe, is of grave concern concerning LGBTQ+ lives.
First, what is Project 2025? I'm glad you asked. The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project states (emphasis mine)…
It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.
This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.
This project (a big ol’ book of over 900+ pages) was created by over 100 conservative, radical Christian nationalist groups and organized by The Heritage Foundation–which means the Heritage Foundation probably funded and had the most influence on this authoritarian agenda.
Now, there is a person named Jay W. Richards, PhD who is the Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family and William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Sidenote: from what I remember, the DeVos family is behind a LOT of funding for religious right campaigns and efforts.
Interestingly, Dr. Richards is also the editor at large for another anti-everything, especially the gays, online magazine called The Stream.
I have been aware of The Stream for a very long time. But before I heard of Project 2025, I saw two venomous articles (one is a series of videos) on The Stream this month promoting conversion therapy and stigmatizing LGBTQ+ people. Be warned, the following quotes suck.
The first article, “From Fringe Heresy to Dominant Orthodoxy: How the Homosexuality Cult Hijacked America” by Jules Gomes–quote (emphasis and parenthesis mine):
It is the greatest civilization coup d’état of the 21st century — a seismic moral, cultural, social, and religious revolution that catapulted a fringe perversion to the status of a privileged orthodoxy.
…
Paul (Darel Paul, a political scientist) is giving his readers the weapons to fight for regime change. If the vanguard of the gay takeover is the elite, then faithful Christians, among other people of goodwill, will have to destroy the elite.
Get that? “Destroy?” I am pretty sure that is not what Jesus said to do with your perceived enemies (we are, I am, not their enemy, but I digress).
Anyway, now to the second article, which is a 7-part video series, “The Ruth Institute Celebrates Ex-Gay Visibility Month by Amplifying the Voices of People Who Emerged from a Dark, Painful World. Part 1 of 7” by The Stream staff. I’ve stripped the links out of the quote as a small act of not wanting to send traffic their way:
One of our favorite pro-family groups in America is The Ruth Institute, which offers a holistic, principled critique of the Sexual Revolution, which was championed by radical ideologues and had a devastating impact comparable to the Communist and Nazi revolutions. Each of those revolutions spread intellectual chaos, disrupted millions of lives, and caused millions of deaths, from concentration camps to abortion clinics.
The Ruth Institute responded to the grim recurrence of “Pride Month” by announcing Ex-Gay Visibility Month, which it’s marking by producing powerful video testimonies…
“Destroy,” “Grim recurrence,” and comparisons of the sexual revolution to communist and Nazi revolutions that murdered millions ← my friends that is a primer in toxic religious stigma passing for intellectual musings in that world.
It wouldn’t take long to develop pages and pages of anti-gay quotes from this one website. One even attacks me directly for my role in Pray Away.
It should be concerning that the Christian nationalist playbook for the entire executive branch of the federal government was pulled together by over 100 conservative groups who believe in and promote this hatred toward LGBTQ+ people. Do these groups believe their vision for ALL public policy is somehow God’s love? They will have already picked all the people to fill all these positions (many of which would be new) on day one.
If they have their way, I’m afraid Pride Month won’t be ignored by future administrations; it will be outlawed.
I am not happy with the alternative (Biden) to this nightmare, but at least it’s a giant challenge to our way of life under effective governance and not a recipe for the apocalypse. I am not a political activist and do not want to be. Even so, I will not disappear quietly back into a culturally based political “closet.”
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