Ask Yourself Why…

Just about every totalitarian government is persecuting us?

Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and Russia all have passed or trying to anti-LGBTQ+ laws to force us back in the closet. And that doesn’t include middle-east, African, Asian, Southeast Asia, and Caribbean countries. Now we add another country, China.

China LGBT rights group shuts down amid hostile environment
AP News
By Huizhong Wu
November 5, 2021


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — An influential LGBT advocacy group in China that has spearheaded many of the legal cases pushing for greater rights is halting its work amid growing restrictions on social activism.

LGBT Rights Advocacy China announced it was ceasing all activities and shutting down its social media accounts in an announcement on social media Thursday.

“We are deeply regretful to tell everyone, Queer Advocacy Online will stop all of our work indefinitely,” the group said on WeChat, using the name of its social media account. It closed its accounts on WeChat and Weibo, two widely used platforms in China.

A member confirmed that all the group’s activities have been shut down. The member, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, declined to say why. Group founder Peng Yanzi did not respond to a request for comment.
[…]
The group mentioned they were in trouble a few months ago, said a 30-year-old LGBT activist who knows the group’s founders and who spoke on condition of anonymity. Lawyers who helped the group with cases had also stopped their work then.

Now ask yourself, do you see the same trend that is happening in other countries happening here?

Are the laws that the Republicans are have passed or are trying to pass following the world wide trend of anti-LGBTQ+ oppression?

Lawmaker wants Texas to allow people the option not to recognize marriage equality
State Rep. James White has just opened the door for Texas's Attorney General to decide whether the Supreme Court's ruling making marriage equality the law of the land has to be "recognized" by Texas citizens.
LGBTQ Nation
By Juwan J. Holmes
October 23, 2021


A state legislator in Texas has made a request to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and his office’s Opinions Committee, inquiring on their position regarding the Supreme Court of the United States’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country, including Texas.

Rep. James White (R) wrote a letter to Paxton, sent on October 19, requesting his opinion on the subject, “Whether Obergefell v. Hodges … requires private citizens to recognize homosexual marriages when the law of Texas continues to define marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman.”

White cites a phrase in the Constitution of Texas that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and another law in the state Family Code that read “A marriage between persons of the same sex or a civil union is contrary to the public policy of this state.” Both declarations, while still on the books, became unenforceable with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell.

Texas is not alone.

45 Republicans Voted to Keep Virginia’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban. They Refuse to Say Why.
Slate

By Elena Debre
April 23, 2021


The debate over same-sex marriage was muted—and made moot—in 2015, with the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. But, even with the ratification of same-sex unions written into national law, discrimination against them still remain ingrained in the GOP platform—and in 30 state constitutions.

Virginia’s state constitution holds one of the strictest same-sex marriage bans in the county. It is sweeping in scope, and has been compared to a Jim Crow law in a Washington Post Op-ed. In 2014, a federal district court found the law unconstitutional; a federal appeals court agreed, and later that year, the Supreme Court declined to review the decision, allowing same-sex couples in Virginia to marry. The ban itself has been unenforceable for seven years. Yet it remains in the state’s constitution, a reminder of when 57 percent of Virginians voted it into law in 2006.
[…]
Two bills were introduced in February of this year—one in the state Senate (SJ 270) and one in the state House (HJ 582)—to begin the process of repealing the invalidated ban on same-sex marriage in Virginia’s constitution. Both bills passed, but still faced significant opposition. Twelve Republicans voted against it in the Senate, and 33 Republicans voted “nay” in the House. Stripping this unconstitutional law from the Virginian constitution would not change anything straightaway, but it would ensure that same-sex couples’ marriages would remain intact should the Supreme Court overturn Obergefell. Yet a majority of Republican lawmakers in Virginia still voted against it. Perhaps these lawmakers want to nullify existing same-sex marriages and prohibit same-sex couples from marrying in the future; that, after all, is what the ban would require in the absence of a federal court order rendering it inoperable. It’s impossible to know for sure what these Republicans are thinking, though, as most of Virginia’s GOP lawmakers shroud their views on same-sex marriage in silence.

And remember Virginia just elected an anti-LGBT governor.

States across U.S. still cling to outdated gay marriage bans
Same-sex marriage became the law of the land in 2015, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the constitutions and statutes of dozens of U.S. states.
NBC News
By Julie Moreau
February 18, 2020


[…]
Despite the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges making same-sex marriage the law of the land, most states still have outdated laws on their books like the ones Virginia just repealed.

Indiana is one of those states, though an attempt to remove its gay marriage ban was unsuccessful last month in the Republican-controlled state Legislature. In fact, GOP opposition to its removal derailed legislation seeking to raise the legal age to marry in the state from 15 to 18. An amendment had been added to the age-limit bill that sought to scrap the state’s 1997 law declaring: “Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female.”
[…]
In Florida, Democratic legislators have been trying for years to repeal the state’s ban — which says “marriage” means “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” — with no luck.

Ask yourself why haven’t they brought their laws and constitutions into line with the US Constitution? Why do they Republicans continue oppressing LGBTQ+ people?