We Know Persecution

The evangelicals claim they are being persecuted and believe me when I say you are not being persecuted.

Why Most Evangelicals Say They Face “A Lot” of Discrimination
Survey Center of America
By Daniel A. Cox
September 7, 2023

Is Christianity under attack in the United States? For a growing number of white evangelical Christians, the answer is yes, but that’s not the only major change in how they understand discrimination in America today.

In 2009, the year America swore in the country’s first Black president, most white evangelical Christians rejected the notion that they were experiencing widespread discrimination. Only about four in ten (42 percent) white evangelicals said that “evangelical Christians” in the U.S. faced a lot of discrimination. Over the next decade, views shifted rapidly. By the time of Trump’s election in 2016, most white evangelicals said they were experiencing a lot of discrimination, and by 2023 it became generally accepted—60 percent now believe evangelical Christians are regularly discriminated against.

[…]

The Growing Influence of Gay and Lesbian People

There has been an undeniable shift in American attitudes toward gay and lesbian people over the past couple of decades. It coincides with a much more visible presence of LGBT people in entertainment media, novels, children’s books, television, and movies. Organizations that track LGBTQ representation in entertainment media have found a massive increase in recent years. The most recent report from GLAAD found that 12 percent of prime-time television characters were LGBTQ, representing a fourfold increase since they began tracking in 2005.

This increased visibility has fundamentally changed perceptions among white evangelicals about who wields cultural power in American society. White evangelical Christians have long felt embattled, fighting for relevance in a rapidly secularizing culture, but the growing acceptance of gay and lesbian people, and the prominence of gay characters, themes, and stories in popular media, have altered perceptions of who is being marginalized in American society. Displays of LGBT cultural influence, in the form of drag shows, pride parades, and pride flags flying in public places, engender the most intense reactions from evangelical Christians, in part, because of what they represent—a sign of their waning influence.

They see it as a pie, the more we get the less is for them, but Human Rights is not finite commodity. It can expand to include everyone.

Americans United writes,

For more than a century, white evangelicals in the United States have cultivated a myth that Christians are under siege by a hostile secular culture. This “persecution complex” has been stoked for decades by white evangelical leaders, conspiracy theorists, right-wing media stars and, most recently, Donald Trump, who tells his white evangelical flock that without his protection the secular left will destroy them.

The “war on Christians” has been advanced, in these accounts, by Supreme Court decisions outlawing mandatory prayer and Bible-reading in public schools in the 1960s and legalizing abortion and marriage for same-sex couples. Concerns have also mounted with the growing visibility of non-Christian religious minorities in the U.S., especially Islam, and the rising ranks of the nonreligious have produced minor skirmishes over coffee cups that say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”

But they feel that their rights are being taken away because we don’t want their religion forced down out throats… we want our god given right to discriminate!

Have you noticed when the oppressed force off the yoke of oppression that the oppressor calls us ungrateful, uppity, which is a common tactic used by oppressors to shame and discredit those seeking liberation from unjust subjugation. Do you remember the Blue Laws? They were laws that restrict or prohibit certain commercial and recreational activities on Sundays. Stores and bars were closed, hunting, operating certain businesses like car dealerships, and other activities on Sundays… Sundays were reserved for the church. Boy what an outcry when the Blue Laws were done away with, they felt that their values and influence are being marginalized in American society and was furthered intensified when our LGBTQ rights have advanced. Once again they felt that their god given right to discriminate was being taken away and under attack. In their minds the more rights we had the less they had.

But our Human Rights are being taken away around the globe, ILGA-Europe reports,

The 2023 Rainbow Europe Map finds that trans and intersex rights at the forefront of positive change for LGBTI people in Europe.

    Despite intense anti-LGBTI attacks in several countries, equality is still advancing across Europe

    While the public discourse is becoming more polarised and violent, particularly against trans people, political determination to advance LGBTI rights is paying off. The largest gains on the map are for countries that introduced legal gender recognition using a self-determination model. Over the past 12 months bans on intersex genital mutilation (IGM) are also bringing countries up in the ranking.

•     Spain jumped six places to number four with its introduction of LGR with self determination, alongside a ban on IGM, while Finland entered the top ten, again up six places, again with LGR based on self-determination. Greece has also moved up four places with its ban on IGM.
•     Gender identity and sex characteristics are included in anti-discrimination and/or hate crime legislation, moving Belgium, Iceland and Moldova up the chart alongside Spain.
•     Moldova has jumped 14 places because sexual orientation and gender identity have been positively included in legislation covering employment, education, provision of goods and services, health, hate crime and hate speech.
•     Slovenia and Switzerland switched positions. Both countries introduced same-sex marriage and joint adoption. Switzerland also allows medically assisted insemination for couples. Croatia too moved up one spot with its introduction of adoption for same-sex couples.

As you can see from the map it is getting hard for trans people in Europe, even Italy is going conservative like they did in the 1930s.