Voter fraud claims didn’t work out? It’s onto homophobia for Republicans like Kobach
With her delicately painted lips and flawless coiffure, she surpassed in charm every other server in the coffee shop.
She was lovely. As I moved forward in the line, she said: “What can I get you, sir?” Her voice was deep and melodic.
I was out that October for a hike with a band of old friends. Nearly a dozen of us have walked together for seven years. Following those jaunts we pause for coffee and conversation.
This time, not one of us mentioned that we had just been served by a trans person. Nor did I hear any other customer there in our Republican suburb advance the subject. I heard not a single shocked scream: “Horrors, she’s trans! She might play sports against frail girls! She could devastate our nation’s morals using nothing more than those painted lips!”
Regular Republicans don’t squawk like that. But Republican politicians? You bet they howl, because they are desperate for anything to talk about other than governing our state and nation.
Though the Old Testament itself condemns them, gay people have been with us a long time. Trans people are nothing new, yet Republican politicians have now unearthed them as a gigantic threat to America’s morals. Their politicians throw books out of libraries, ban gender-affirming medical care, pass “don’t say gay” laws forbidding teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues, declare that only they, the politicians, know the proper gender for our own personal birth certificates and driver’s licenses, while also ruling on which restrooms people can use.
Once again (this time for me) horrors! Could it be that I, an 89-year-old white guy, have been sitting these many years in toilet booths next to persons assigned at birth as females? What a catastrophe. That just devastates my psyche, not to say my ability to perform vital bodily functions. So it’s the trans fellow in the next booth I should fear, not the enraged Republican male with his 9 millimeter Glock and AR-15 assault rifle?
Republican politicians now claim honors as moral champions. Though surely they recall their likely 2024 presidential candidate’s guidance on what part of a woman’s body lustful men should “grab.” Even if he never stops “grabbing,” for PR purposes they should at least flush out his dirty mouth.
Show a little mercy, Republicans, since the Bible likely threatens you more than it threatens gay people. Mark 10:11 states that “whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her.” Leviticus 20:10 adds: “The man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife...the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Those scriptures alone could kill off two-thirds of our adult population, all the remarried and their spouses.
Don’t forget the brides who cannot prove they are virgins. Deuteronomy 22:21 dictates: “Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die.” The Bible also condemns to death “he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord” (Leviticus 24: 10-16); “every one that curseth his father or his mother” (Leviticus 20:9) plus anyone who works on the Sabbath, even if he only “gathers sticks…” (Exodus 35:2 and Numbers 15:32).
As I said, Republicans desperately need the gay issue. Ever since President Ronald Reagan, and after the Trump tax cuts, rich people in America have been getting richer much faster than the rest of us, the poor poorer and the middle class stuck in the same old rut. That’s just perfect for wealthy right-wingers.
Why would Republican politicians ever use the government to change that? So what have they got to talk about, or advocate, or set out actually to accomplish? Thus, they dodge away from the grim duty of governing for the common good.
No Republican in Kansas is better at dodging than Kris Kobach, now the Kansas attorney general. He first got elected by yelling “voter fraud.” After being elected himself, in a later election he found nine improper voters. Six were older white Republican men who said they voted in two places, blaming the confusion on moving, retirement or caring for elderly parents.
Kobach apparently decided that, if he cannot win on “voter fraud,” try gay and trans. Get after them. Masquerade as a Christian — and sit up front in church — while hitting hard at people like the lovely trans person who served us that day in the coffee shop.
Contact the columnist at hammerc12@gmail.com.