gay in trumpland

“Part of Trumpland is that we are hiding from each other because they want us to go back into hiding … and by they I mean the President’s base and the people he has surrounded himself with …  homophobia and transphobia is starting to bubble back up again.”

RON AMATO

Gay in Trumpland is an art project that explores the fears LGBTQ individuals feel in America at this moment. And I think Mr. Amato is right when he puts in perspective these fears. I think that one of the things that I saw coming was that this administration would try to reverse all the gains the LGBTQ community had gained under Obama. When Mike Pence (or the Devil's Butler, as I call him) was chosen as vice president, I knew that Cheeto was going to court the evangelical vote shamelessly. The very corrupt man with multiple bankruptcies and divorces, the man who had cheated on his wives repeatedly and who treated women as disposable, was going to be the president the religious right wanted.

But the religious right wanted him because they were desperate to elect someone who would do their bidding: end an era of tolerance towards LGBTQ individuals that they could not stand. They want what Ramzan Kadyrov has implemented in Chechnya: a pogrom against gay men (and of course against the rest of the LBTQ).

One of the main sources of money for the religious right has always been the boogieman of the gays. The gays desecrating marriage. The gays recruiting children. The gays getting everybody sick with AIDS. The gays destroying society as they know it. And for eight years, they saw their dream of making the US a theocracy getting more and more distant.

That is, until Cheeto popped up from the depths of his tacky New York apartment. Then they saw the light. And when Pence was chosen as his running mate, they realized they could destroy everything that had been gained by the LGBTQ movement in the previous years. And they were right.

We have seen how homophobia has crept back up in the national discourse. How trans people in the military were targeted and now they've been banned. Cheeto's transphobia is now backed by SCOTUS. Why do you think they needed Kavannaugh there? To tip the scales. Hillary warned us, though . It's depressing to see how dozens of 'religious freedom' bills were introduced in lower circuit courts where right wing friendly judges were being posted by the Cheeto administration.

Hate group leaders crept into the White House like fungus. Pete LaBarbera is there. All the religious right think tanks have found a place in Cheeto's administration. And right there, int the Oval Office Mike Pence and his milquetoast wife imprinted the administration with the syrupy bigotry they have always embraced: hatred with a smile. And they smile because they are just waiting until Cheeto is impeached to pounce and take over the White House. That's the dream that keeps Mike hard. The dream that moves Mother to start thinking how she'll get rid of the garish decor that Cheeto has implemented in the White House to change it for her bland Hobby Lobby aesthetic.

I hope that never happens. I hope Cheeto is lead in handcuffs out of the White House and so are Pence and Mother. They all need to go. Because gay rights in this country are under constant assault. Marriage equality was not the end. Marriage equality was only the beginning of the fight against the evil that is religion.

And we have to keep fighting. Through art, through activism, by voting, by paying attention to candidates (*ahem* Hillary *ahem*)who warn us of the dangers of letting stupid people in large numbers make decisions for a country.

xoxo