Our #1 Export!

One of our exports is sweeping the world, from Central America, to South America, and over to Africa, and up to Europe. 

What is it?

US religious right at center of anti-LGBTQ+ message pushed around the world

American groups have helped to establish global web who share ideas and funding in bid to restrict gay and trans rights

Guardian

By Tom Perkins

July 9, 2023

When the US evangelical preacher and anti-LGBTQ+ crusader Scott Lively landed in Uganda in 2009 to warn of the “gay agenda”, he was arriving after a series of culture-war defeats at home.

More and more US states were recognizing same-sex marriage, and opinion polls were showing fewer and fewer Americans objected. Lively was there to offer Uganda’s lawmakers some advice on how to drum up outrage. “Emphasize the issue of the homosexual recruitment of children,” he advised.

Five years later, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni signed a law that made same-sex relationships punishable by death, asserting that western groups and gay people were “coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality”.

But their lies are not just going to Africa but to other countries around the world.

As wave of anti LGBTQ+ legislation sweeps the US, some may hear echoes of Lively’s messaging. Fine-tuned in Africa and elsewhere, arguments used to attack rights overseas have been re-imported to the US as the religious right warns again that the left and gay people are “grooming seven-year-olds” and “promoting pedophilia”.

[…]

Africa, eastern Europe and Latin America often function as petri dishes for strategy as US groups abroad help craft legislation and fight legal battles. The new global front in culture wars is in turn empowering a resurgent domestic religious right that is pushing book bans, Pride flag bans and record 491 state level bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights.

[…]

In Poland, authorities have used new laws to harass LGBTQ+ activists, and around 100 municipalities – nearly a third of the country – in 2019 passed resolutions declaring themselves free of “LGBT ideology”.

You want to guess which political party is supporting all this? You only get one guess.

Among key US groups backing these other efforts are the American Center for Law and Justice and European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), both run by Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Jay Sekulow. In a legal brief, the ECLJ defended the Polish municipalities, arguing there is nothing discriminatory “in considering that pro-LGBT+ social pressure is the vector of an ideology, and in refusing to promote it among children”. The ECLJ has also provided legal assistance defending Italy’s ban on gay marriage, and for other human rights cases at the EU level.

And it is having results in Fascists countries…

Tbilisi Pride festival canceled after violent anti-LGBTQ protests

CNN

By Niamh Kennedy

July 8, 2023

A Pride festival was canceled in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Saturday by organizers who say authorities failed to prevent violent disruptions from Russian-affiliated far-right groups.

According to Georgian public broadcaster First Channel, police clashed with anti-LGBTQ protesters in Lisi Wonderland, an events venue outside Tbilisi where the closed event was scheduled to take place.

Festival organizers Tbilisi Pride said in a tweet that they were “compelled” to cancel the festival and “evacuate” the festival territory.

“The Ministry of Interior of Georgia once again neglected to protect us from violent far-right groups and allowed the mobs to prevent us from exercising our freedom of expression and assembly even in private settings,” Tbilisi Pride said.

Videos posted by Georgian activist channels showed clashes between police officers and anti-LGBTQ protesters in the festival area in Lisi Wonderland. Anti-Pride protesters were also pictured setting Pride flags on fire.

So what do the government do? Bring in more police to protect the Pride celebrations? Nope, they close down the Pride celebrations. Punish the innocent.