In the series premiere of “UNCLOSETED, with Spencer Macnaughton,” Spencer speaks with the woman at the helm of the Greater Than Campaign, a new coalition working to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.
This interview echoed of some of the same rhetoric used by Anita Bryant in the “Save Our Children” campaign from the 80’s. We need to start making pies again, it sounds like there are MANY faces in desperate need of one.
The right is obsessed with “protecting children” from LGBTQ people, but they seem to have no qualms about letting kids go malnourished, uneducated, or, in the case of other countries, dead at the behest of our military industrial complex. It is utter hypocrisy to me that these people claim to care about the welfare of children when the policies enacted by the republicans over the past 40 years have done precisely the opposite.
Thank you so deeply for doing this interview. I don't have the skill and wouldn't have had the level-headedness to make it all the way through. I couldn't actually watch it because just the photo of her in the email was terrifying; the hate on her face was so ugly with hatred that I didn't want to hear her, and I'm grateful to have been able to read the transcipt. That was hard enough! She and her people are not working in the interests of children. The fundamentalist Christian mega-churches are not working in the interests of children. All of them actually hate children. I know several people, raised by friends of mine in two-mom/two-dad households who are absolutely amazing adults BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS LOVED THEM AND WORKED HARD TO GIVE THEM OPPORTUNITIES TO GROW UP IN HOUSEHOLDS THAT - WAIT FOR IT - LOVED AND WANTED THEM! Yeah, sorry for the shouting. Studies here, studies there. Get out of your self-protedted land of mega-churches and meet actual people who have had/are having amazing lives because of having parents who are more highly qualified than many of these unusually punisshing, rejecting communities. Oh: and of course "freedom of religion" was extremely important to the founders of our country. I am honetly profoundly grateful to you for getting through that conversation. It does need to be had. A lot.
First, thanks to you and the Uncloseted team for your efforts to reach out and initiate engagement.
Faust expresses textbook strategy we continue to see against transgender, non-binary, gender-expansive and gender-exploring youth.
Faust mentions “natural rights” - sounds like a bone toss at the relatively new and bogus “originalist” theory of the conservative legal world that 6 of our Supreme Court justices utilize at their pleasure. It includes the belief that the American government was “founded” as a Christian nation, despite said government not representing the majority of the population of the continent at the time, whether Black, female or Indigenous. The Founders never centered the rights of women, Blacks or indigenous people, and thinking that children had “natural rights” of any kind would have surprised the so-called men of the Enlightenment.
Then Faust relies on the strict binary definition of “biological sex” for children that they strategically use to rouse their evangelical Christian and phobic audiences; sadly, many Americans and lawmakers have learned that standing on such biblical interpretations still offers a well-trod pathway to money and power, and equality be damned.
These organizations and the women we call TERFs (I suspect Faust also falls into that camp) claim to support the rights of children (girls) and “parental rights” even as they demonize and traumatize other peoples’ children.
I cannot overstate the great degree of pain these extremist organizations and their members have caused for a vulnerable population of children and the thousands of parents and guardians - of all identities, races and faiths - who love them unconditionally. And the men and women behind writing these policies do not care about the harm done to children. At all. This needs to be understood.
They do not actually listen to the children, which is the greatest hypocrisy of all; never, not once, did conservative legislators actually respond with open hearts and minds to the testimonies that courageous trans youth and their parents, teachers, and faith leaders presented in the years after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Instead, most of those who spoke up in an effort to educate were threatened so much afterward that they were forced to move, as hundreds of thousands have now done in the last two decades.
The billionaire dark money funding these efforts is relentless; may we continue to ask for and see the progressive wealthy (like Mackenzie Scott) continue to step up to fund our organization and resistance, and may all the separate 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations, leaders, and our political allies continue to improve cooperative efforts to engage and educate. We need to weave a stronger and united message that pushes into conservative spaces, as you do here, but even into churches - so we can actually be heard. They may still fear our collective radiance, and the work is slow, but I hope those of us who can stay and fight will be able to continue to do so.
What the hell's this chick's problem? She's going to wreck gay marriage because her mom didn't want to be with a straight guy when she was young? That's like the most Freudian bullcrap I've ever heard.
This interview echoed of some of the same rhetoric used by Anita Bryant in the “Save Our Children” campaign from the 80’s. We need to start making pies again, it sounds like there are MANY faces in desperate need of one.
The right is obsessed with “protecting children” from LGBTQ people, but they seem to have no qualms about letting kids go malnourished, uneducated, or, in the case of other countries, dead at the behest of our military industrial complex. It is utter hypocrisy to me that these people claim to care about the welfare of children when the policies enacted by the republicans over the past 40 years have done precisely the opposite.
Are you sure her name isn’t Karen?
Thank you so deeply for doing this interview. I don't have the skill and wouldn't have had the level-headedness to make it all the way through. I couldn't actually watch it because just the photo of her in the email was terrifying; the hate on her face was so ugly with hatred that I didn't want to hear her, and I'm grateful to have been able to read the transcipt. That was hard enough! She and her people are not working in the interests of children. The fundamentalist Christian mega-churches are not working in the interests of children. All of them actually hate children. I know several people, raised by friends of mine in two-mom/two-dad households who are absolutely amazing adults BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS LOVED THEM AND WORKED HARD TO GIVE THEM OPPORTUNITIES TO GROW UP IN HOUSEHOLDS THAT - WAIT FOR IT - LOVED AND WANTED THEM! Yeah, sorry for the shouting. Studies here, studies there. Get out of your self-protedted land of mega-churches and meet actual people who have had/are having amazing lives because of having parents who are more highly qualified than many of these unusually punisshing, rejecting communities. Oh: and of course "freedom of religion" was extremely important to the founders of our country. I am honetly profoundly grateful to you for getting through that conversation. It does need to be had. A lot.
First, thanks to you and the Uncloseted team for your efforts to reach out and initiate engagement.
Faust expresses textbook strategy we continue to see against transgender, non-binary, gender-expansive and gender-exploring youth.
Faust mentions “natural rights” - sounds like a bone toss at the relatively new and bogus “originalist” theory of the conservative legal world that 6 of our Supreme Court justices utilize at their pleasure. It includes the belief that the American government was “founded” as a Christian nation, despite said government not representing the majority of the population of the continent at the time, whether Black, female or Indigenous. The Founders never centered the rights of women, Blacks or indigenous people, and thinking that children had “natural rights” of any kind would have surprised the so-called men of the Enlightenment.
Then Faust relies on the strict binary definition of “biological sex” for children that they strategically use to rouse their evangelical Christian and phobic audiences; sadly, many Americans and lawmakers have learned that standing on such biblical interpretations still offers a well-trod pathway to money and power, and equality be damned.
These organizations and the women we call TERFs (I suspect Faust also falls into that camp) claim to support the rights of children (girls) and “parental rights” even as they demonize and traumatize other peoples’ children.
I cannot overstate the great degree of pain these extremist organizations and their members have caused for a vulnerable population of children and the thousands of parents and guardians - of all identities, races and faiths - who love them unconditionally. And the men and women behind writing these policies do not care about the harm done to children. At all. This needs to be understood.
They do not actually listen to the children, which is the greatest hypocrisy of all; never, not once, did conservative legislators actually respond with open hearts and minds to the testimonies that courageous trans youth and their parents, teachers, and faith leaders presented in the years after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Instead, most of those who spoke up in an effort to educate were threatened so much afterward that they were forced to move, as hundreds of thousands have now done in the last two decades.
The billionaire dark money funding these efforts is relentless; may we continue to ask for and see the progressive wealthy (like Mackenzie Scott) continue to step up to fund our organization and resistance, and may all the separate 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations, leaders, and our political allies continue to improve cooperative efforts to engage and educate. We need to weave a stronger and united message that pushes into conservative spaces, as you do here, but even into churches - so we can actually be heard. They may still fear our collective radiance, and the work is slow, but I hope those of us who can stay and fight will be able to continue to do so.
What the hell's this chick's problem? She's going to wreck gay marriage because her mom didn't want to be with a straight guy when she was young? That's like the most Freudian bullcrap I've ever heard.