- How Conservatives keep badgering the law even as they lose the culture war;
- Specifically, the Supreme Court case about banning books that Christians are uncomfortable with;
- Related: HHS is proposing defunding the LGBTQ+ suicide hotline; and Sam Alito misreads a children’s book, exposing his animus toward gay marriage;
- And noting how the White House bragging about following science means the opposite.
Last year I read and reviewed that book by Stephen Prothero called WHY LIBERALS WIN THE CULTURE WARS (EVEN WHEN THEY LOSE ELECTIONS), whose basic point was that as society changes (as it inevitably does) those uncomfortable with change, i.e. conservatives, complain only once such changes are well under way, by which time they’ve already lost the battle. (Save for once in a generation or two authoritarian crack-downs… which are part of this cycle too. And which most of us thought America was immune to.)
Here’s a perfect example from the Supreme Court this week.
Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 23 Apr 2025: Too late to opt-out: Supreme Court ultimately can’t save the religious right’s futile book bans, subtitled “Even if SCOTUS allows LGBTQ books to get pushed out of classrooms, the right is still losing the larger culture war”
Marcotte begins by calling out the hypocrisy of Christian ideals.
Can you treat someone with “love, kindness, and respect” while simultaneously insisting their identity is so poisonous that it cannot be acknowledged?
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday for Mahmoud v. Taylor, which has become known as the “don’t say gay” case, because it’s over conservative objections to children’s books, taught in Maryland classrooms, that position queerness as a normal fact of life. The arguments involved a lot of legalese about “burden” versus “coercion,” or what constitutes a “sincerely held” religious belief. But at the heart of the battle was a more philosophical question, one with an answer that should be self-evident: Is it possible to “respect” someone while trying to erase their existence?
Naturally, the argument from relies on fatuous, long-discredited premises.
The right’s lawyer argued that censoring these books wasn’t about disrespecting queer people, but protecting “children’s innocence.” It’s a nonsense argument, however, as it assumes there’s a “respectful” way to erase people. But it was also quite silly, as if hiding these books would shield children from the knowledge that LGBTQ identities exist. (An unspoken corrollary is the false view they can prevent children from growing up queer.) The case illustrates the animating futility at the heart of the MAGA movement: they will never manifest their dream of a past “great” America, when “queer” wasn’t a thing. Such a period never existed, but especially not in an era when queer people are visible in pop culture, the internet, and the general community. The government can force teachers not to say “gay” in school, but kids are going to hear about it everywhere else.
Point: see Mark Lilla on the corrosive notion of childhood innocence. Point: see my point oft-repeated on this blog that animus toward gays is the existential worry by parents that if their kids are gay they will have no grandchildren (which, these days, is not necessarily true). Point: gay people have always existed, and there never was a “golden age” when they didn’t exist. (Most people just didn’t know about them, just as they didn’t know about autistic people.)
And point, extending the second one: this is all about tribal priorities to expand the tribe at all costs, from an age when infant mortality was high. This became part of base human nature; thus that existential dread. It’s never about individual choices or fulfillment. Times have changed but human nature hasn’t, and has come to conflict with the ideas to overcome the problematic aspects of human nature, as the Enlightenment thinkers, and the American founders who wrote the Constitution, sought to overcome.
Many people have thought this through, but not MAGA conservatives. If they can’t legally define gays and trans people out of existence, then at least they can demonize them, which is what this Supreme Court case is about. Marcotte concludes:
One thing censorship of queer books does accomplish is signaling to LGBTQ kids that there’s something shameful about who they are. “LGBTQ+ youth who attend schools with an inclusive sex education curriculum report lower levels of depression and suicidality,” explained the American Psychological Association in their amicus brief in support of the school district. Listening to the mean-spirited arguments from the right before the Supreme Court today, it’s hard to shake the sense that this shame is the desired outcome. Kids are going to learn what “gay” is one way or another, and at very young ages — and many of them will be queer. The only question is whether the authorities in their life tell them they’re bad people for it. Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the GOP’s goals with the case are crystal clear. They can’t win the culture war, but they’re going to use these lawsuits to spit in the face of all the queer people who offend them just by existing.
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Related: also in the news this week:
Axios, Avery Lotz, 23 Apr 2025: LGBTQ+ youth suicide hotline among proposed HHS budget cuts
Let ’em kill themselves, seems to be HHS and RFK Jr.’s position.
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One more on this topic.
Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, 23 Apr 2025: How Sam Alito Inadvertently Revealed His Own Homophobia From the Bench
The book shown is one of those in question. It’s a picture book about two men getting married, in which a little girl has reservations about it. Alito interpreted to mean she had moral objections to the marriage. He was wrong.
A few minutes later, Sotomayor made this point to Rassbach. “The character, the child character, wasn’t objecting to same-sex marriage,” the justice said. “She was objecting to the fact that marriage would take her uncle away from spending more time with her, correct?”
And how Alito couldn’t let this go.
“No one in the book has any problem with same-sex marriage,” the author said. “Everyone in the story supports Bobby and Jamie’s decision to marry, including Chloe. She’s thrilled about the wedding after she gets to know Jamie better” and is “completely supportive.” Brannen said she was “dismayed” by the way Alito characterized the book; she first wondered if Alito hadn’t bothered to read it…
So Alito was reading into the story what he wanted to see.
The broader story here: change in society happens, but at a pace where not everyone can keep up. We have to give allowance to Alito, and many other older people, who are uncomfortable with the changes in society younger folks take for granted. This is a truism in science too, which after all is done by humans. Sometimes, for the evidence to prevail, you have to wait for old guys, driven by convention, to die off.
This has always been true.
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Covered by many spots today. If they claim to be following science, you can be sure they are not. The Trump administration is an instantiation of Orwellian reality.
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