The War on Trans People: Part 1, Evangelicals & Gay Marriage

In part one we look at the right-wing crusade against gay marriage and learn the history of the Evangelical organizations that lead the charge on anti-LGBTQ+ hate and political action.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey evernyone. This is Derrison Davis from It Could
Happen Here. For this week of episodes, the team has
put together a secestral group of episodes all focused on
the broad topic of the escalating war on trans people.
We'll cover historical background, the international turf movement, and all

(00:25):
the new anti trans legislation trying to be made into
law here in the United States. We won't have time
to cover everything. It's only five episodes, but we we
tried to cram more stuff in, and you know, it's
it's we don't want to make episodes only two or
three hours, so I'm sure we'll we'll cover all these
topics more in the future, but we tried to create
five episodes here that kind of cover a lot of
a lot of our bases. Also, we've we've tried not

(00:47):
to make the episodes super depressing, because yeah, it's five
episodes based on a kind of upsetting topic, so we
tried to keep them more information based and throwing in
some jokes here and there, you know, but it is
still a fun, fun topic, so to keep keep that
in mind. But we've tried to try to space things
out and not make them too long and not too depressing.
So without further ado, here is episode one of the

(01:10):
War on trans people. Welcome to it could happen here?
A podcast about things falling apart and in in the
case of this week, getting very angry at people doing
really shitty things, um to a specific subset of the population.
All right, Gary, See, isn't that every week? Well no,

(01:31):
sometimes we talk about other stuff like three D printed guns,
but that ties in Garrison take it from here. I'm
done for the week. Yes, So welcome to it happen here.
We're talking about well one of the big it could
happens here, is it? Yeah? In in in relation to
the ongoing war on queer people in general. Um and

(01:53):
how yeah, that sure seems to be like it's happening
so here here, right now. But before we get to
the actual right now points, I still I do want
to do want to do a little bit of background
on how it's kind of gotten to this point in
the past few decades and the variously precursors to the
current moment that has seemed to be really focused on

(02:14):
trans people specifically, But for a long time, a lot
of the focus was on protecting quote unquote the sanctity
of marriage, which was one of the one of the big,
one of the big talking points, and to help us
talk about this fun and engaging topic, I asked on
Karen and Eve from the Kitchen Table Cult podcast to

(02:38):
assist us in this horrible endeavor. Greetings, and I'm sorry, Okay,
yes we are. We are gays who grew up in
that universe. So yes, as as as was I, as
was probably a few other people on this this call.
Uh yeah, we we all we all have varying experiences
growing up in the evangelical movement. Um well also realizing huh,

(03:02):
maybe we are not straight to d orsi Is children.
So yeah, but we're gonna we're gonna, we're gonna be
talking about the kind of the escalating war and gay
marriage and how that kind of moves over to trans
people at a certain point, um and specifically talking about
kind of the combination of religion and politics, because this

(03:25):
is this is something I've discussed before on my two
part focus on the family episode, and this really is
going to tie into a lot of that stuff because
it's a lot of the same people. But I I
would love for everyone else to kind of fill in
the gaps where I have stuff missing, because I definitely
have a a good, good point on the Family Research
Council kind of side of things, and I would love
for people to fill in the gaps on the other
other kind of stuff. But yeah, we're gonna start off

(03:47):
for talking about Family Research Council um and that whole
kind of side of things, because I mean they, oh, yes,
Josh Tucker is coming up. Don't both research and family
ways So this seems unproblematic. I'm gonna just mute things
from now on, and yeah, you guys continue in terms
of all of the save the children rhetoric. Yes, Josh

(04:10):
Josh Dogger will be coming up, so yeah, but I
do want to actually open up with a quote from
Mike Rosebush, who was the vice president of Focus on
the Family from thousand four UM and then a few
years ago he came out as a as a gay
and as a surprise so called affirming like christian who

(04:32):
like loves Jesus and endorses rights for gay people. He left,
He left slash, got fired from Focus on the Family.
Is he e s side A or side B? Does
he is he in favor of the celibacy model? Or
is he a show with marriage. He seems to be
excited about fucking okay, so he's being we like it

(04:52):
is definitely the better side. But I want to start
off with by by him just to kind of set
the stage for how how this type of thing kind
of really got got started, for combining, you know, the
evangelical kind of biblical world worldview with political organizing. So anyway,
going to read a quote here quote Dobson even more

(05:15):
so than focused on the family, and that's a that's
James Dobson, by the way, Um, Dobson, even more so
than focus on the family as an organization, strongly encouraged
all evangelicals to support and express their values in the
public arena. As background, before about nineteen seventy, evangelicals often
confined themselves within their own like cloistored communities. Political development

(05:37):
was viewed as a secular enterprise and suspect at best,
and this change during the Dobson era. He and others
encouraged evangelicals to learn and apply the biblical worldview. The
evangelical person was coached in applying the apologetics debate method
in publicly sharing the biblical worldview, voting in every local

(05:57):
and national election, became seen as a Christians do d
So at focus, I learned that the evangelical leaders like Dr.
Dobson considered the Republican Party to be the political machine
best equipped to endorse a biblical worldview. In delighted harmony,
Republican Party strategists salivated to win elections by securing the
evangelical vote. Thus a mutual agreement was formed. The plan

(06:19):
became that evangelical leaders would introduce a hot button issue
onto ballots and every local and state election, evangelical ministers
would provide voting guides on how to influence evangelicals to
vote for the only correct Christian choice. In turn the
elector candidate. Yeah, in turn, that elected Republican candidate would
champion the corresponding biblical worldview. And this strategy worked. And

(06:43):
what was the most reliable hot button to place on
the local and state voting ballots, Something that would ensure
evangelicals in mass to show up to vote the anti
gay rights bills. Gay rights were viewed by evangelicals as
a threat to the Biblical family and society in general. So, yeah,
that's kind of how I want to open up in
terms of kind of the shift in like the seventies

(07:05):
and eighties and especially in the nineties, from kind of
evangelicals being pretty divorced from political mainstream action to them
becoming a crucial part of the Republican machine, and this
kind of circle that completes itself at this at this
like at this point afterwards, because yeah, this combined with
a whole bunch of save the children rhetoric and like

(07:26):
saving the family, like like the unit of the family
as a sacred thing to protect. It's really like that
that idea really carries over now into into into the
trans stuff because obviously they kind of lost a lot
of this stuff they wanted to do on gay marriage
after a long, a long fight, you know, decades and decades,
but it's still the same core idea at the heart
of it. Yeah, I just want to put an evergreen

(07:50):
footnote on all of that and say thanks and fuck
you to finish laughly for getting us down that road. Yes, yeah,
that was like lame can definitely be passed around like
like originates there. Like I mean like before all of that,
like the evangelical church was not even united on the

(08:13):
idea of abortion being backed like like we have come
so far to merging these these universes in this really
a fact up little marriage that they got going on. No,
and and you can't you cannot divorce the ideas of
like the escalating war against abortion and then also like
with the save the children, like protect the family idea, right,

(08:35):
these these are the these are the same issues. Like
these these do go together in terms of people, you know,
making this like fake version of the family that they
are swearing to protect, whether that be from gay people,
or that be from you know, women's bodily autonomy or
you know, women's rights or like like feminism. All of
it's in the same is in the same package. It's

(08:56):
like that meme of like two pictures in camps, like
because I have the same picture. It's the same exact rhetoric.
And it's just like re skin slightly too for whatever
topic of the day. The the other other big thing
I want to mention before I get into Family Research

(09:16):
Council UM is the two thousand and four book A
Marriage Under Fire, Bye Bye by Dr James Dobson, which
was definitely one of the one of the other kind
of key points in escalating these idea of the culture
war UM. And you know that that type of that
type of like more like almost like tactical rhetoric. It's
all yeah, it's it's it was definitely, it was definitely

(09:38):
a turning point. Remember at the same time when Fireproof
came out. Oh I think so, Yeah, it happened close. Yeah,
Fireproof and all that came out between two thousand and
four and two thousand and six seven, so that was
all around the same time period because they were losing,
like you said earlier, they were losing the battle against

(10:00):
right because that was that was around the time Queer
I was coming out. That was when they were starting
to get nervous that maybe they couldnt stop this particular
like like forward slide. But yeah, like on on the
back cover of their Robert You has something to say. No,
I was just thinking back to that period of time
when it it seemed positive progress in that regard seemed

(10:22):
inevitable and unstoppable. Yeah, I think the note on martial
language as used for this is really important here, like
this is a battle, it is under fire, like that's
that is something that was definitely imployed on that point.

(10:42):
I'm just gonna read a little bit of the back
cover of a Marriage under Fire. Here we go in
this succinct analysis of the issue. Dr James Dobson, for
that's a compelling case, Like it's the legalization of marriage
between homosexuals at the dire ramifications our nation could face.
Same sex marriage will destroy the fundamental principles of marriage,
parenthood and gender. Families will be increasingly unstable as their

(11:07):
definition expands to incorporate multiple moms or Dad's in quotation marks.
Legalization of gay marriages will lead to polygamy and other
alternatives to one man, one woman unions. The divorce rate
will be higher, making our children less safe. Marriage under
fire provides the foundations of a battle plan for the
preservation of traditional values in our nation. Our response cannot

(11:32):
be clearer. The well being of the family and thus
our nation hangs in the balance. Now the time to
speak out in defensive marriage and the American family. So yeah,
it is particularly the battle plan, right. You know. One
thing I really loved during this time was the like
libertarian Christian response to this kind of conversation where they're

(11:53):
just like or we could just you know, not have
marriage beachied to the state at all, you know, yeah,
yea that I do remember that this is the like
this is the backup plan for like okay, if like
if marriage, you know, gay marriage goes forward, then we
can just like do that if we want to, you know,
just like completely eliminated. No, absolutely, yeah, I absolutely remember

(12:17):
that that type of rhetoric. Even even yeah, even around
when like the Supreme Court cases we're going forward, they
were like really set on like this is like you know,
last resort. We have to fixture that make sure that
it like like like church marriage is just completely separate,
which even that that still is the case, and like
like a lot of places like churches is still a
lot of states like reserve the rights to uh not

(12:38):
married people, um, and you can only you can do
it through the courts, but not through the church. There's
also the subtext in that that I think should be unpacked,
which is that the multiple moms and dad's kind of
image that's given is not a signal of like the
non traditional family being bad, but more of a There

(12:59):
was this myth that was pushed really hard in the
conversion therapy circuit that like if you didn't have a
good father figure, you were going to be gay. You're
you know, if you didn't have a good relationship with
your mom, you're going to be gay. So like having
this as like this, these coded statements in there are

(13:20):
giving the clue of like we're trying to stop the cycle.
We're trying to not create more gay kids. Um, and
that's why this is important. Yeah. I was reading a
lot earlier today from the Heritage Foundation because I remember
them being a key start it. It was so bad,
and their whole thing was like, you have to have

(13:41):
a mother and a father otherwise everything is terrible. And
then you get gay kids, and that also lights like
goes into the whole other theory that was like well,
which I think Robertson either made up or repeated. Um,
it was like, well, people who are gay were abused
as children. Yeah, that is that is definitely when I

(14:01):
mean then of course all these all these evangelicals are
also all like beating their kids, were abusing your child
because they were gay or because I mean I was
and I am, But I don't think. Yeah, the related
in the sense that you being gay is is the

(14:23):
is that we'll be one of the triggers for the parents,
but it's not the cause of relationship runs the opposite direction,
right exactly. Anyway, we're gonna take a break and hear
from all of our lovely sponsors who don't support child abuse.
Probably well, I mean unless it's unless it's which which

(14:47):
does you know does run that island off the coast
of Indonesia where you can hunt children for sport? But
we prefer not to see that. I don't think, Robert,
I think you have to bleep that. No, Garrison, We're
not going to bleep an ad. That's it. Sponsors. This
show was child hunting Island, which you cannot say that
is designed to do every week more kids. Um, well,

(15:09):
it's designed to make happier billionaires. Yeah, there's nothing. There's
nothing Elon Musk clubs more than hunting children on his
at a private island reserve off the coast of Indonesia.
And and like Elon Musk, you two can hunt children
if you bube anyway, here's here's yet. Yes, we we

(15:37):
are back, and now we're gonna we're gonna move on
to probably the most unfun portion of the show today.
Um f r C, the Family Research Council. I'm gonna
actually talk about like what they are, what they did,
and how they're kind of important in the evolution of
rhetoric and various other stuff. So yeah, Family Research Council
emerged from a night White House conference on families that

(15:59):
James Dobson kind of co led with the President of
the United States. So that's fun. Um. Yeah, So he
he met and prayed with a group of like eight
Christian leaders at a Washington, d c. Hotel, ultimately leading
to the creation of the Family Research Council UM, under
the direction of a Gerald region Er. That's how that's then,
that's how I'm gonna say it. That's what I'm gonna

(16:20):
say his name because he doesn't respect so I'm not
going to google it. Um and it uh, it became
a division to focus on the family, and like the
late eighties under a Gary Bowyer UM. And the reason
there's a who buch of like complicated like tax stuff
because focused on the family can't get too political because
then it'll like sacrifice their tax taxing extempt status. So

(16:41):
there's a whole bunch of really shady stuff happening in
between Family Research Council and focus on the family proper
and not doing any lobbying. Yeah, in terms of like
who runs what and like what cross over there is
with like the leadership. They're basically the same organization, but
they are like legally separate and kind of have different
like operating strategies. Um, but they really are, like to

(17:03):
be fair, lots of words to do this, this is
not unusual. No, it's it's it's not unusual, but like
it's important to that. Like they basically are like like
they're they're very linked, like they are like like sibling organizations. M. So, yeah,
this is uh, this is uh. The Gary Boyer, the
guy who took over in the late eighties of what
it was also the was the under Secretary of Education

(17:24):
and Domestic policy advisor to President Reagan. UM. So again
already like fully fully tied into like the Republican machine.
So um Boyer brought in several anti lgbt researchers who
pumped out like defamatory material about queer people. UM. Robert
Knight was a longtime conservative writer and journalist and the
kind of major propagandist against lgbt Q rights. He served

(17:48):
as the f f r c S Director of Cultural
Affairers in the nineties up into the early two thousands. UM.
While working there, he wrote, along with some focus on
the family editors booklet called the the Homosexual Behavior and Pedophilia.
This is a very very very common thread and all

(18:08):
their stuff is that gay people were abused as kids
and gay people therefore are like wired to also abuse kids,
Like it's part of this cycle that they like coopt
a whole bunch of research on it, that they misrepresented,
that all of the researchers who did the actual stuff
was like, no, you're totally wrong. Yeah, it's it's there's

(18:30):
there's I talk I talked about this a little a
little bit and more in depth than the focus on
the family episodes for for bastards in terms of like
the actual research they used. Um, but yeah, it is uh.
In the what one of the remarkable claims inside the
booklet was was the assertion that quote one of the
primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish

(18:51):
all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles
as the profits of a new sexual order. So that's, uh,
that's great, that profits f I T, S P E,
P H Y s pH is just libertarianism and basically yeah,

(19:13):
basically yes, um, yes. The For some reason, you cannot
find this pamphlet on the f FARC website today. UM,
why ed, Yeah, so Boya left the group UM and
then FARC had two presidents UM and emerge and one

(19:33):
of the most one of them kind of resulted in
becoming the most powerful religious right lobbying group in the
country with tons of tons of policy researchers and writers
UM and a lot of a lot of like email
like email lists and like physical mailing lists was a
big part of their political organizing. You know, Eve and
Karen we have talked before about the effective power of

(19:54):
the rights mailing lists in terms of getting political change. Yeah.
Kenneth Conners was a Florida attorney and a leader in
the pro life movement. He served as president in the
early two thousand's. During his kind of tenure, um f
r c's agenda focused mostly on abortion and then also
a traditional marriage of other stuff was like religious liberty

(20:17):
which means Christian supremacy, not actual religious liberty UM. And
then like uh, like protecting parents rights right, protecting like
parental choice UM, which we'll we'll talk we'll talk more
like how do they define traditional marriages? This involving like
dowries and land transfers and treaties. I believe they just

(20:39):
I believe they want one man and then one woman
and the woman doesn't really need to actually want it,
but as long as the man wants it, then it's fine. Um.
And are they like the Catholics where they believe it
has to be for the purposes of procreation? Um, I
mean they're they're part of the mainstream evangelicals. Like there's
definitely there's like the court idea. So yeah, like they

(21:01):
are they are, they are for that. But it's I know,
it's it is. It's it's a very like patriarchal thing. Um.
And it depends things dumb here, but like the because
these are these are like important distinctions that need It
depends on congregation to congregation, right, Like like the kind
of the stuff that I grew up with wasn't super
focused on tons of on having tons of kids actually, um,

(21:24):
in fact that they kind of preferred just keeping it
capped off at two kids because you know, the more
kids you had, the less loyally were to the church
because you had to focus more on your kids. Actually,
So it does, it does. It does really depend on
congreggation to congregation. I think Family Research Council tried to
keep themselves open to lots of interpretations, so blets of

(21:44):
people can like glom onto their stuff. So they didn't
get super specific around like the rule of child rearing,
and that's anything it's important to note around that this time,
or a little before it was when John Paul's Theology
the Body was coming out, which is this tone um
that's basically getting into like why you know, the death

(22:04):
penalty you would be bad, and why abortion is bad.
And it's all this like sanctity of the body and
the body existing and then like the sanctity of sex
as for the purposes appropriation that was in the in
the atmosphere at this time. That was definitely a key
point is that sex is just for making kids. Like
that is definitely like a big, a big part of it,

(22:27):
which like they don't actually really believe, but they say
right because like if you look at all of like
the all of the extra like the people like all
like these leaders like are not like faithful to their
wives by anything, not an accidental side effect kids at
the point. No, yeah, um, but I think it is
like it is interesting like the amount of stuff that's around,
like parental choice and like parent rights, which will come

(22:48):
up over the course of the next few episodes of
the series. I'm right now at writing episodes about the
current like a book bandings going across the country and
a lot of those tied to liked like parents rights
over their children, um, like they decide what their children
gets to read. So it's all stuff I've never heard
of that before in my life. That's definitely not also

(23:09):
tied up with a bunch of the stuff happening in
Florida right now, it's definitely not the definitely related to
Mike Ferris at all. Yeah, and now, yeah, I mean
really like yeah, I mean this is sort of what
we're getting at, is that the modern anti trend stuff
is they're just playing all of the sort of greatest
chance of the anti Bay stuff like the bathroom and
the CRT stuff. Yeah, I don't worry. I'm planning to

(23:31):
tie this up in a nice in a nice little bow.
Sorry for jumping getting ahead of you. Just give me
like fifteen minutes and I'll do it. So um yeah.
Up next, we're talking starting to two US and three.
They change leaders again, and this is where they really
kind of evolved into their current form with Tony Perkins,
who became president that guy of the Family Research Council

(23:54):
in to us reading. Prior prior to that, he serves
two terms as a Louisiana state representative in the ninth
and even even even when he was president of Family
Research Counselor he served to two years as state representative.
He's also a former police officer UM and a television
news reporter. So overall just sounds like a quite quite

(24:15):
the dude. Um yeah he he he authored a whole
bun child, you know, like all these guys right in
tons of like Christian books they get published by like
weird Christian publishers. Um. He also served as the senior
pastor of a of a church in Maryland, UM called
the Hope Christian Church. He uh and he was he
was a leader of an effort by white and black

(24:36):
religious right preachers to work together against LGBT equality, specifically
like in like the East Coast in the South, that's
where there's so there's a there's a like cross organizing
between historically black churches. Of course not all of them,
but like the Perkins really tried to like reach out
on that front to get like that coalition going, which
was kind of unique at the time. So yeah, a

(24:59):
big part of of f r C strategy is to
pound home the false claim that queer people are more
likely to sexually abused children other than heterosexual people. Um,
this is uh, yeah, this is not not scientifically true.
You can look up like stats and you can look
up you can look at like American Psychology Association has
a lot of research on this topic because it was

(25:20):
such a big point in the early two thousand's that
people had to like talk about it. Yeah, so we
is all that's like one of these things that like
was a myth, you know, ambiently as a scare tactic
and a slippery so slope fallacy. But I think there's
also it has its roots in a particular misunderstanding of
Romans too, which is the passage that most people point

(25:42):
to as their anti gay rhetoric. And the context of
that is like most like centrist and liberal like Biblical
scholars will agree that that passage was more about the
pedophilia that was happening in the Roman Empire and speaking
out against that um and not specifically against like consulting

(26:06):
adults even even even even like the Old even even
in the Old Testament to a lot of new people
going into like the actual translations of stuff, and like
even like Leviticus, um, it is definitely pointing towards it
being about specifically like fathers not abusing their like like
you know, like prepubescent like sons who are like more

(26:28):
like androgynous, Like it is specifically targeted like this type
of idea. It's not it's not against like gay men
who are like adults. Yeah, there's there's this theological conversation
on the right that was happening that kind of was
like trying to account for that historical context and was
like it's both. Clearly it's both because they go together,

(26:49):
right and obviously like we have to find a way
to justify demonizing gay people in order to protect the
sanctity of marriage. So we have still save the children
and multiple save the children. So Perkins has continued to
defend the kind of game and his pedophiles idea. UM.
He had a he had a televised debate on MSNBC
into in two usan ten about this um. So like yeah,

(27:13):
that's I mean, that is like twelve years ago at
this point, but still two US and ten feels much
more recent than stuff, you know, talking about like the
late nineties, Um, yeah, debating with the Southern Property Law Center,
like on the issue of that now. Yeah. So. Some
other anti LGBT kind of propagandists at uh FRC includes

(27:33):
Peter Sprigg, who joined into us in one UM. He
authored the brochure called Top ten Myths about Homosexuality, which
was pretty popular around the time. UM. Such claims inside
the book conclude that like X, gay therapy or conversion
therapy works, sexual orientation can be change. Um uh, lgbt
V LGBTQ people are mentally ill because being lgbt Q

(27:55):
makes you ill, and that the sexual abuse of boys
by adult men is more common than can sensual sex
between adult men, which is not obviously not true. That
is quite I have questions, that is quite, so many questions,
that is quite quite. The stat um and like Springs,
sources are a mixture of like junk science is stewed

(28:15):
by groups that support conversion therapy UM and also legitimate
science quota out of context or cherry picked, which is
a long used tactic by anti gay kind of groups.
The bolster their bolster like their claims and their general
like rhetoric. Right if you mix in like a hint
of truth. It can make all of your outrageous stuff
seem more like legible. Um we knew that from the

(28:36):
screw Tape Letters. Yeah, like one of one of one
of his better books. I actually enjoyed the screw Tape Letters.
I think it's it's pretty fucking funny. It's good, but
also like just like an easter egg for those who
know what we're talking about, Like he was extremely kinky
carry on. Anyway, one of the main researchers they kind

(29:00):
of misused research for was Judith Stacey, who was like
since issued lots of public statements condemning the condemning what
you know, Family Research Council advocates for, and has endlessly
requested that anti gay groups to stop MR misrepresenting her work. Um. Yeah,
so we're gonna jump forward to two US and eight, uh,

(29:21):
because this is this is of course, the election of
Obama has really kind of frightened a lot of people.
This is when Dobson sent out that letter detailing like
what a post Obama future could be, in which he
included gay marriage as a part of like the dystopian
night Mary. He was imagining, this is the future people want. Yeah,

(29:43):
an interesting It was just an interesting thing on sprgue.
Here he was he was he was on MSMBC again,
which I mean, maybe we should stop, maybe we should
stop inviting these people onto news channels, but anyway, um
Spring responding, Spring responded to a question about allowing non
Americans same sex partners um of American citizens to immigrate

(30:03):
into the States by saying I would prefer that we
export homosexuals from the United States rather than import to
them UM and saying I think there would be a
place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior um and then
when asked, so should we outlaw gay behavior, Springs said yes,
so yeah. It's it's like it's so very much clear
kind of mask off thing is that they just don't
they just don't want it around at all. And an

(30:26):
idea I'm going to tie this kind of more towards
towards the end of the series with the trans stuff,
is like the idea of queerness has like a contagion um.
These people having to like the brutality is justified in
their own heads because they it's like this idea that
queerness can spread and it can infect children, so you
have to you have to contain it. And any action
taken against it is justified because it's like you're containing

(30:49):
a virus and it's like this is really what kind
of makes them feel so justified and righteous in every
action they do. So yeah, clear out including outlaw and
gay gay people could have you know, exporting them from
the United States, you know, a blatantly fascist idea. So yeah,
um uh I. F oar C also worked unsuccessfully to

(31:13):
continue the don't ask, don't tell policy. Um this was
up until like two US and ten, so that was
that was a bit definitely another thing that they tried
to focus on. But the slide, you know, the progressive slide,
actually was happening around that time. Something interesting about that,
yeah earlier today. Yeah, oh yeah. So I was again

(31:37):
looking at Heritage Foundation because that was the Heritage Foundation
was like my big kind of go to when I
was growing up in the nineties and two thousands and
doing speech and debate and apologetics CAMPA and all that ship.
And um, I was like, well, what was their take
on donast don't tell? And they in the early nineties,
we're very very against it. Yeah, in ninety three they

(31:59):
had like this paper were published and they were very
against it. Because they were like, well, then you won't
then you'll still have gay people in the military. Yeah,
in the military, Yes, they're like they will. There will
be like it will be bad for the unit cohesion.
There will be sexual abuse, as if that wasn't already happening.

(32:20):
There will be like all of these terrible things happening
in the military that couldn't possibly happen, couldn't possibly be
happening otherwise it will like we can combat effectiveness is
the line that Family Research Council used. Yeah, so there
was definitely a shift in like the nineties where a
lot of these evangelical groups were against donuts don't tell

(32:42):
because yeah, it's still allowed gay people and just if
they didn't say anything. But then as they saw progress happening,
they're like, Okay, this is better than nothing like this,
this is better than them being openly gay. So they
kind of switched gears towards um which just you know,
they're just like grasping at anything they can um. I think,
what's time for another break and then we will kind

(33:02):
of finish this off with some other not fun information.
But yeah, let's let's let's do. Let's let's do. Let's
let's do it at Let's let's see, let's see what
our our lovely sponsors AT has to say. Well, this
big thing is trying to get volunteers together to raid

(33:23):
it's child hunting island off the coast of Indonesia. Counter. Yeah, yeah,
you can. You can volunteer to go fight in Ukraine,
or you can volunteer to help take down it's child
hunting island so that you can run it. You know,
it would be fun to have all of the food
delivery services have their own private militias that take the world.
We're moving towards garrison. I mean the post office already does,

(33:44):
so why not the Yeah, yeah, arm everybody. Everything should
be a military. That's the whatever podcast. This is here

(34:06):
and we're back and we are still talking about my
favorite topic. Just the Family Research Council. During the twelve
election cycle, they donated about two thousand dollars to eighty
federal Republican candidates UM, saying that they're using the money
to UH to strategically be used to support pro family
candidates and pro family issues and elections and valid incentives

(34:29):
across the country. Yeah. So this is just you know,
in terms of you know, keep keep the keep keep
the pro pro family angle in mind. You know, this
is that they continuously were always donating money to two
US and twelve was the highest one on on record,
um and I think I don't think they've even matched
that since then. It was it was pretty high because
that was that was Obama's second term, So they were

(34:51):
definitely like trying to really really organize, right because this
this this is like right but right before when the
Supreme Court was going to be ruling on gay marriage
as well, so of course which digit didn't get finalist,
but they were starting to hear cases. We're gonna let's
we're going to kind of briefly go back to to
uh to James Dobson here just reference with people are

(35:12):
people who do not listen to the behind the bastards once.
He's an evangelical Christian author and self proclaimed psychologist who
who if you if you don't know who James Dobson is,
please preserve your innocence and just quit, like just go
enjoy it. Don't know now forever now, I just don't know. God,
I do. I do love the idea of a self
proclaimed psychologist. That's that's that's the energy to child psychologists.

(35:38):
It's just like I know what kids need. They need
to be on Hunting Island, you know. And and this
guy doesn't even believe in like child's avout, Like no,
he doesn't held development. But also you do know that
I'm getting a PhD in Paris psychology, right, I know, Garrison,
We're paying for it. Yes, this podcast is going to
have the highest rate of doc years of any podcast

(36:01):
on the internet other than the one that our friend does. Anyway,
I will be happy to be invited back onto Kava's
podcast as a doctor in paras psychology. I think I'll
be able to offer some really unique insights. Okay, anyway,
Um Bobson founded Focus of Family in nineteen seventy seven,
which is unfortunate because he could have just watched Star Wars,

(36:22):
but instead that is that is a key part of
this ideology. Um yeah, he was, he's he's a founding
He's a founding member of several um A t LGBT
hit groups, UM Family Research councilor being one of them.
Also a lot. He is a founder of Alliance Defending Freedom.

(36:44):
Um so yeah, he got he got, he got two
under his belt. UM. The the organization which is now
based in Arizona, became a very powerful kind of fundraising
behemouth dedicated to fighting so called marriage like marriage quality
for for queer people and trans inclusive nondiscrimination protections. Um

(37:05):
and with a big part of the thing that they
were fighting for was enshrining a quote right to discriminate
against LGBTQ people in state laws, which is, you know,
all the stuff around like you know what if a
baker is forced to bake a cake for you know,
all of this nonsense is what so that that that
is so like that that that is that that is Dobson.

(37:26):
He started that kind of thing. Yeah, so I'm gonna
I'm gonna now have a little fun though, because when
we want to jump ahead a little bit just to
kind of get the rhetoric kind of nailed down on
what on what kind of house stuff, we're gonna start
shifting towards the trans stuff at this point. Um. But um,

(37:48):
after after the Supreme Court ruling for nationwide kind of
marriage equality, UM, Dobson has had this had this beautiful,
beautiful quote. I had this black cloud over me on
June twenty x when that decision was handed down and
I was contemplating this foreboding, this black cow to hit
me like a ton of bricks. The decision was not
really about gay marriage. It's not. It's about everything else.

(38:10):
It's about the entire culture war. It's about it's about
control of the public schools, and it's about what's happening
in universities. It's about the economy, and it's about what businesses,
and it's about the military, and it's about medicine. It's
about everything. We lost the entire culture war without one decision.
The gay marriage thing was just a part of it.
But it's gonna touch every dimension. So I wish that

(38:32):
was true. But in terms of yes, in terms of
kind of how this gets expanded to like businesses, schools, universities, medicine,
I just love the histrionics is that they started kind
of focusing on in terms of like, well, we lost
this culture war. I guess we got to move onto
the next one, which is, you know, the even more

(38:52):
freakish thing, which is, oh, kids wanting to kids realizing
that maybe they have a different views on gender. So
that's the next kind of like rotating target that that
that they that they move moved towards. So yeah, UM.
Earlier that year, Dobson laid bare his his fundamental confusion

(39:13):
on what it means to be a LGBT UM. He
claimed on his radio show that being bisexual meant that
you have orgies, which I mean not ye yes, yes um.

(39:35):
He also blamed uh in two thousand and twelve, he
also blamed the two US in twelve Sandy Hook massacre
on queer people because because NA the nation turned turned
their back on God, it allowed it allowed judgments to
fall on us, which is why I said that that's happened.
That's one of the interesting splits in the right between
the people who think it's fake and the people who
thought it was queer people's fault. Yes, yeah, it's because

(39:56):
of the evidence. Yeah, they've all come back together now,
but it was. It was a real, it was real split.
And one of one of the other great things about
Dobson is so after my Behind the Bastards episodes on Dobson,
like literally like the day after it dropped, I found
this extra little disturbing nugget of info about him, um
in a in an old blog post titled is My
Child Becoming Homosexual? Dobson recommends Dobson recommends things that a

(40:20):
father can do to help his child fix homosexual symptoms.
Fix sorry, including taking your child into the shower with
you to compare penises of Yeah, it is not good.
I will I will quote from I will quote from

(40:40):
the blog. Um, the boy's father has to do his part.
He needs to mirror and affirm his son's male nous.
He can play rough and tumble games with his son
in ways that are decidedly different from the games he
would play with a little girl. He can help us
and learn how to throw and catch a ball. He
can teach him to pound a square put in peg
into a square hole. He could even take his son

(41:05):
into the shower with him where a boy couldn't help
notice that dad has a fetus, just like holy bigger.
Oh my god, this reminds me of so that is
a quote by Dr jim Stuffson, psychologist. Oh my god. Anyway,

(41:31):
I'm sure there's nothing, nothing at all to uh, hey,
Jimmy Dabbs, how's your son? Yeah, that's how are you?
Are you talking? Nothing at all to kind of interrogate there?
Um yeah, m hm. The other thing that I really love,
and by love, I mean I don't love. Um, is

(41:51):
that like the only gay people who exist are gay boys. Yeah,
the upians and by people don't exist at all. Like, yeah,
this is a really interesting thing. It's because it's about
why would Uh, it's about if it happens to a woman,
it's like, oh, well they're a woman anyway, they're already

(42:12):
not as good as men. I guess it kind of
makes sense that they would do that. Um, if it
happens to a guy, you're like, well, obviously, like why
would you do that. You're part of the patriarchy. Why
would you, Like, you're supposed to exert power over women.
What is wrong with you for not wanting that? Like
there's a whole bunch of other like patriarchal stuff going on,
and like why they focused on that also because they

(42:34):
undeniably find lesbians attractives, like they can't like they can't
help but find it hot. So they definitely focus it
more on gay men because they find that more gross
because it is like a defiance of patriarchy in it
like a different way you but stuff. Yeah, and of course,
but um well and I think also this is the
same reason why transmisogyny becomes such a huge sort of

(42:56):
driver fanti transfer because you know, I mean you see
the a lot also with we see with non Christian
like transforms to but like the ultimate sin you could
commit if if if you if you're a person is
if like yeah, the ultimate sin you can commit against
sort of the family is having someone who being born

(43:18):
and being seen as a man and then you know,
becoming a woman a woman, And that's like that's you
know that, that's that's what trans misogyny is, right, It's
it's about it's it's the specific kind of trans sexist
trans sexism that you get when you do that, when
you specifically like you know, in in these people's eyes,
it's like you give up being a man and become
a woman. And these they go ballistic over this because

(43:40):
it's you know, like it's it's it's it's it's rejection
to patriarchal power. And then you know, and they have
to do all of this sort of like incredible pathologizing
to explain why this would happen and ignore just like
this person was always a woman. That's also it's like
it's it's a condemnation of your misogyny, in your misogynistic

(44:01):
behavior to like go join you know, the victims of
our hate. So like it has all of these these
layers here. Yeah, and it's gonna we're gonna get like
right right right into trend stuff now because yeah, in
Supreme Court ruling making the same sex marriage illegal throughout
the United States, which sent lgbut anti LGBT hate groups

(44:21):
into a furious reaction. UM. Family Family Research Council was
no exception, and it started working in tandem with other
groups to support so called kind of religious liberty, you know,
laws which allowed people who object to same sex to
same sex like couples and just you know, queerness in general,
to to deny goods and services to same sex couples

(44:41):
and just you know, queer people in general. It is
it is very like nonspecific um. So yeah, Also in
Family Research Council faced its own set of scandals. Referring
to a friend at the pod Josh jugger Um was
executive who was executive rector of the Family Research Council

(45:02):
Action Um political arm of the organization. It was obviously
revealed that he had molested several babies to your hard drive,
several children and yeah, I had a lot of had
a lot of children on his hard drives so much
that like even like the FBI was kind of surprised
how much he had. Like when when when the FBI

(45:24):
is surprised on how much child porn you have, You're
like quite yeah, you are? You are you surprised them?
Have you? Have you read his his appeal? I have
not read. It's basically making it out to be like
there was this another guy who had access to that computer.

(45:45):
Was his name Josh Dougger. No, it's deciding, you're just
like he's just like somebody else probably did it. It
wasn't me. Yeah, So he resigned from Family Research Council
after posting a brief message on his website saying that
he resigned after concerning events. I think he resigned from

(46:06):
a Family Research Council because of the Ashley Madison. Yes, well, yeah,
he resigned listing listed listing concerning events as the recent
he started Ashley Madison accounts got hacked and leaked and
it was revealing his email was also on there. Yes, yeah, yeah,
I feel like that's what we kicked it off. But

(46:27):
that was around the time that was he didn't get Yeah,
his sister's case got released to the press. It is
it is frustrating. How Yeah, definitely, the actually Madison thing
was seen as more of a moral failing than molestian children,
um and having tons of child porn. That was definitely
like within like the church, and within within the kind

(46:49):
of the whole like like church like network. The actual
Madison thing was seen as much more of a kind
of like an egregious sin. Well, because that's infidelity and
that's just like that, just Troy as the entire you know,
nuclear family, whereas molesting your siblings is just boys doing

(47:10):
waste stuff. See, I I grew up a boy, and
I never I never did that. I kind of never
did that either. So anyway, Uh, any real boys right
in and let us know this back to back to
Perkins UM the Perkins was elected head chair of the

(47:30):
U S Commission on International Religious Freedom um in, which
was an independent, bipartisan and federal government entity established by
US Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on threats to
religious freedom. So who sponsored that fucking bill? That's a
good question. Uh. Over the course of this time, he

(47:51):
continued to work at the Family Research Council as well, UM,
including the annual Family Research Council sponsored UH values voter
been to those which featured President Trump as a speaker
um as well as Healthy Human Services Secretary Alexaser. So yeah,
this was the first time a sitting Health and Human

(48:12):
Services secretary was addressed, like gave an address at at
the gathering um so also at VVS the Values Voter Summit,
they featured an anti trans panel that illustrated the anti
lgbt Q rights shift to kind of storytelling as a
way to further marginalized trans people's and like next year,

(48:36):
oh god, the the panel hosted like a multiple kind
of anti transactivists. Um Lynn Maker was there. Um two
of Maker's children in entify his trans and they no
longer speak to her. Um Andre van Mole, the co
chairman Anti lgbt Hate group of the American College of
Pediatrician's Committee on Adolescent Sexuality, used to use like suice

(49:00):
scientific claims, telling the audience that the that that dissidence
from gender dysphoria is the norm, calling that they use
this weird problematic study that LEMPT, like that limpt trans
kids together with non trans kids to study this idea
of gender identity. It's a whole bunch of like the same,
like you know how like they were like over two thousands.
They were. They were misusing like research to say like, oh, look,

(49:23):
how all of these gay people are all also all pedophiles.
Also they have sex with kids more often than adults.
Like what, No, it's it's the same. It's this, it's
the same type of thing. Um. They also fake me
the false claim that the majority of trans kids are
also like a diagnosed with autism, which makes it easier
for them to be recruited into being transgender because they
can be tricked because they're autistic, because you can collect

(49:45):
them all. This is like the they then diagram of
autism causme vaccines is causing trans kids. Also also the
idea that like trans affirming care causes more dysphoria, which
causes more suicide, as opposed to the scientific reasoning that
affirming care causes less dysphoria, which causes less suicide. Um,
you know, a whole bunch of a whole bunch of

(50:07):
nonsense stuff. You can't expect a group that will not
acknowledge the fact that having access to birth control as
a way to prevent abortions would acknowledge any of this
is real either. Yeah, No, I mean the pedal also
featured Cathy Grace Duncan from from the Portland, Oregon based

(50:28):
Portland's Fellowship, which states that it offers a freedom to
people from homosexuality. UM. Duncan claims that she detransitioned, and
it is proof that transitioning is always wrong because that
she detransitions. That means it's proof for everybody that everybody
should yes, because trans people are a monolith. Yeah, we're
talking more about We're gonna be talking more about, um,

(50:50):
the sort of how how people who do transition get
weaponized against trans people. And again, I also I also
need to point out, like just just immediately that like
most people who do transition detransition because as they are
under immense social pressure too because society is normalusly transphobic.
And then there are a small number of people who
do treat who do treat de transition because it's not
for them and good for them, but yeah, they get

(51:12):
a very various fall minority of those people basically get
used by people who don't care about them. Other people
get gender firming surgeries and change their minds about it later.
There's this whole movement of you know, women who are
getting their breast implants removed. What's the difference. It's the
same picture. Ye, same picture. Sure. Another really fun another

(51:36):
fun thing I do at least once a year as
I go onto the focus on the Family and Family
Research Council websites and that look at look at their
entire like queer section. That's really interesting because like all
of them around like gay people like is is my
kid gay? What to do? What to do with my kids? Gay?
Is my is my kids showing gay symptoms? Like all
the stuff, and then post it's all like the gender issue,

(51:57):
you know, the cult the people trying to get your
kid to be trans? Is my kid trans? Why is
my kid dressing up in girls clothes? It's like, it's
it's such a it's such an immediate shift to know
if your kid is taxing trans shit, all of this
homosexual like fear stuff to immediately being scared about like
the agenda identity kind of movement and like the cult
of transgenderism. Um, yeah, it is, it is. It is

(52:21):
such a stark, stark change. Heritage Foundation website is the
same I licked up when they added their gender page,
and it was in twenty seven ten, yeah, exactly was
when they started going after trans things. The only thing
was like, oh, well, it's actually okay that there's a
pay gap between men and women. In seventeen they were
like trans yea From eighteen, you see a massive explosion

(52:45):
in all of these in all of these like stuff
about trans and like trans science, whether it be like
the whether it be like the answers in Genesis, whether
it be focused with the family, whether it be because
the Heritage Foundation, all of this stuff. You can watch
watch an immediate shift in the type of stuff that
they they start talking about. I will just say I
am a little glad they're doing it, not for reasons

(53:06):
you think, but because this means that they're their kids
growing up like we grew up, who know that this
is an option now? Whereas like that is true, we
didn't know that it was an option until we got out.
Yeah is it's mean? Yeah, But you can see the
kind of the switch and stuff. There's a in the
in a Family Research Council pamphlet written by Peter Sprague

(53:29):
called how to Respond to the LGBTQ Movement Publish says
people with gender dysphoria or transgender identities are more likely
than the general population to engage in high risk behaviors
which may contribute to psychological disorders or both. Highs of
suicide exists in among those who have already received gender
resignment surgery, which exists to a Siddle tendency is resulted
in an underlying pathology. The same people write the script

(53:52):
of euphor you. But yeah, a whole bunch of stuff
around like Tom Perkins, Peter Sprigue. You just look at
all of this stuff. It's um, this is such a
such an explosion. Uh. Tony Perkins wrote a pamphlet called
I Have a Girl Brain but a Boy Body, um
for for for a Virginia kindergarteners, like a transgender story

(54:17):
thing that he was doing around thing for years, LGBTQ
activists wanted to keep the goal of luring children into
sexual confusion under wraps. But now that they've hood winked
a lot of the country on their agenda, these extremists
no longer have to hide. In fact, they're increasingly bold
and even boastful about their real intentions of recruiting kids.
So in terms of like again, it's it's it is

(54:39):
and it is an infection. It's a contagion that they're
trying to like infect or recruit children. Um. And again
all of that kind of rhetoric is in a post,
like in a in like a in a pamphlet call
you know about about trans being about being trans, thaying
I have a girl brain but in the boy body.
It's like the fact that they're this rhetoric is happening,
is gonna it's gonna convince kids that they fall prey

(55:00):
to it. Like it's this whole, this whole thing that
is such a such a marked kind of change. Um,
you can read, you know. The other titles include stuff
like the regressive cult of Transgenderism. Um, all this kind
of stuff talking about our country understands that scientology is
a cult, but we don't seem to understand is how
the much, how much the transition, how much the transgender
movement mirrors cults like scientology. It's it's all of it's

(55:24):
all of the same, it's all of the same stuff.
And the transgender cult is a cult. It's the best
cult I've been in yet. Rates like, I I feel
like we need to Nobody will give me. I can.
I can stop doing my weekly injections whenever I want to,
And you won't. You won't lose your friends. Amazing, No,

(55:45):
I will not so anyway, that stuff not at any
point that was kind of the bulk of stuff I
had gathered around specifically talking about kind of family Family
Research Council and how you know, the change happened around
from all of the stuff around you know, protecting marriage equality,

(56:05):
protecting you know, the psychety of marriage to changing It's
like it's the same save the children rhetoric, but now
shifted over to gender issues. I mean, they're just window
because they can't win on the gay issue anymore, so
they've just got to keep pushing in that direction. But
it's the same organizing forces. It's the same organizations, it's
the same mailing lists, it's the same pamphlets, it's the

(56:26):
same writer's right, it's all the people who wrote that,
all the same stuff, just moving it over to trans things.
So I just wanted to kind of lay this groundwork
for us when we when we talk about kind of
the ongoing legislative fight against trans people in these next
few episodes. I just wanted to kind of lay this
out for an example of talking about Yeah, it is
really just you know, there was all these fears around
you know, gay people in the change rooms, Gay people

(56:48):
in the bathrooms just gets shifted over to trans people
in change rooms, trans people in the bathrooms. It's just this,
it's the just moving. It's just this, like this turning
of the clock that just shifts it over to the transgender.
I don't know what before, but it's easier to like
to pull parental Right, stuff is on the rise in
the in this community as a talking point, and it's

(57:10):
always easier to pull that in with trans issues than
it is with gay issues. Yes, well, I think that
we are running out of time. But even curan where
can people find you online? U Our podcast is the
Kitchen Table Cults. You can find it at Kitchen Table
cult dot com. Um our handle on Twitter is Kitchen

(57:30):
Cult Pod. I'm at Blue pet Boy on Twitter and
I'm at even Underscore at ginger um. I would also
recommend like if you want to have a like you know,
trans authors take on the transition. The novel De transition
Baby is out there. It exists. Is again one person's takes.

(57:51):
It's not a monolithic thing, but it's a it's a
good novel. Um And then if you want to learn
more about the effects of the deconversion Therapy Universe. UM.
Gary Conley's book Boy Race is fucking great. YEP, agreed. UM.
I always want to thank you both for coming on
to talk about again one of one of the most

(58:11):
fun topics. UM. A favorite people near and dear to
near and dear to all of our hearts with featuring
friends friends of the Pod, James Dobson and his urge
to take his kids in the shower with them to
compare penises, and our good friend Josh Dogger. Um, Save
save the children, Not like that, all right, that's the

(58:35):
that's the episode. Lssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss