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How Will the Left React to This Latest from Trump?
NEW: Exclusive: Trump admin. launches global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay, US officials tell @NBCNews, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record. https://t.co/cRaPJdw8C1
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 19, 2019
Ignore it? Find a problem with it? You don’t think they’ll just… applaud it, do you?!
Published in General
Won’t it just be called Republican hypocrisy? They will just ask Pence why he didn’t want marriage equality here at home.
Are you now going to have all the Republicans who wanted marriage protection acts wrap themselves up in rainbow flags?
Or maybe they will just ask what took Republicans so long to recognize gay people. That would be a nice backhanded way to compliment them.
I suppose they’ll respond the same way anti-war Trump-haters responded to his plan to end the wars in Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan.
By silently ignoring it.
Just more proof of Trump and Pence’s hatred of homosexuals.
More of Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry.
Or they will ask why he isnt pressuring Qutar and Saudi Arabia too? Is it because they are paying him off?
Now I think it is good for Trump to pressure Iran on this, but frankly given Irans vast human rights abuses this seems needlessly specific thing to bring up. You have many more low hanging fruit to pick at. Have we really exhausted those?
I think the story here should be the good news policy, not the Democrats’ reaction. This seems to be a mirror image of “Republicans Pounce”.
MAGA-country?
Sort of. I see & hear people tying this to the administration’s stance towards Iran. It’s just another tactic! He doesn’t mean anything by it.
The timing might be coincidental. If not, what a great way to frustrate Democrat messaging while they stew over the wall funding.
I don’t know what “a global campaign” is supposed to mean. But it will be telling to see how this message is conveyed to Muslim governments. Decriminalizing homosexuality is a far cry from the Saudi habit of execution.
As a Christian, I have mixed feelings about such a campaign. On the one hand, morality and legality are not identical concerns, and not every sin should be outlawed. On the other hand, this perhaps encourages the narrative of Western decadence; and, aside from racial equality, it seems hard to argue that our culture has strengthened since the days of anti-sodomy laws. Now we proceed to strike crossdressing and miscellaneous grotesque displays from public nuisance complaints.
Are we promoting charitable and just tolerance of individuals or waving our freak flag?
Straight privilege.
I tend to agree the effort will be to try and turn the narrative back onto the social conservatives and avoid as much as possible talking about the fundamentalists running Iran, since even to say Trump doesn’t really care about gay rights and is only using this to troll the Iranians opens up the question of why the Obama Administration was so willing to shift U.S. Middle Eastern policy towards Iran when they knew the mullahs hard-line position against gay rights. It’s way easier to try and spin the former than the latter (which would run along the lines of Obama was opening the door to better relations to Iran in order to give Iranians greater access to the West and thereby cause the public and their leaders to re-evaluate their positions on LBGTQ issues).
Is a campaign to decriminalize incest and bestiality next? No, I am not saying that engaging in sodomy (although Biblically forbidden as a capital offense) should remain a criminal act, but a Madison Avenue campaign to decriminalize it definitely advances the decadent slide of Western civilization. And if you think this will win Republicans a single brownie point from leftists, you are wrong.
This development recalls justices Roberts and Kavanaugh going along with the liberal justices in refusing to hear two cases where Planned Parenthood used Medicaid funds for abortions. At the end of the day, so-called conservatives tend to submit to the liberal zeitgeist.
Obama said that marriage is between a man and a woman. But the left knew he couldn’t have meant it. They were probably right but cynical.
Trump says that being gay shouldn’t be a crime. But the left knows he can’t have meant it. They are wrong, but still cynical.
When your views of others are that jaundiced you can be pretty sure that you are suffering from an excess of toxins.
I figured it out! It’s a political ploy!
Pence said a lot of rabid stuff about homosexuals on his radio show. In my opinion, this makes his life very complicated when he goes above House of Representatives.
My objection is that the state shouldn’t call homosexual marriage and heterosexual “marriage” the same thing. They obviously aren’t.
My amateur opinion is having more and more gay adoption isn’t a good thing, but considering that there are probably far more meth heads that don’t have to get a license to procreate, it isn’t really a big deal in the big picture.
Since the left reflexively opposes everything Trump does, it would not surprise me if they oppose this on the grounds Trump is arrogantly imposing western values on different cultures.
Well I wonder what he’ll actually do.
There’s a long list of countries that criminalise homosexual acts – and the US actually has real influence over many of them.
Courtesy Wikipedia:
The key:
Blue/turquoise – degrees of equality
Yellow – unenforced penalty
Ochre – prison
Red – life in prison
Brown – death. You’ll notice, being switched on people, that this includes countries where the US has zero influence (Iran) and countries where what the US says goes (Saudi Arabia). So Saudi will really be the proof of the pudding. I’m disinclined to put money on any pressure being applied to Saudi, but I would be happy to be wrong.
I wonder what the President’s level of personal involvement in this decision was. I suspect it was minimal.
The story seems to indicated this is a club to bludgeon Iran with on human rights grounds. Unfortunately I suspect that noble standard won’t also be applied to Saudi Arabia.
The question was, what do think the left will say? It seems in this comment you are speaking for yourself. Message received, thanks for your input!
Do you really not see the difference between throwing gays off of buildings or putting them in prison, and advocating gay marriage?
Wow.
Obviously it shouldn’t be criminal. but neither should it be celebrated. It’s unfortunate, like a lot naturally occurring things.
A-a-and, right on schedule: Trump’s Plan to Decriminalize Homosexuality Is an Old Racist Tactic.
I imagine that should make certain commentators on this thread very happy.
Let me add that I wonder if Trump even knew this was happening.
And I wonder how long this “global campaign” will last. Lots of things get announced that eventually become nothing.
At the very least, I hope we’re saying “stop executing them!”
Well, we have our answer. If something bad happens, it’s Trump’s fault. If something positive happens, it happens in spite of him or without his involvement.
Yeah. I mean, it’s pretty consistent with the record of His presidency so far.
I was about to write that this program will be ignored by mainstream outlets, to the extent possible. Your link suggests that the mainstream coverage will be meta-reporting on the LGBT communities’ disdain for it.
Based on what? Lemme guess – your dislike of Trump . . .
Good for Trump – this should stomp the talking points for some of the liberals’ residential campaigns. Russia is a good example of a poor human rights record for the gay community. Standing up for the safety and dignity for all – he gets no credit.
It’s interesting a Republican administration is taking this task on . . .
Of course.
It definately wasn’t based on his apathy towards gay rights. Or his apathy towards policy. Or his apathy towards detail. Or his inability to perform basic management function. Or the fact that nobody is really in control of the government. Or the fact that this wasn’t built around a major policy initiative, it’s just some thing a guy out in Germany is doing.
It is about my dislike of Trump. Just like any and all other criticism.