“Love has no gender, compassion has no religion, character has no race.”
One thing we all have in common is that we want to be loved.
The fight to have the same rights as heterosexuals has been a tough one, but the LGBTQ+ community has been continuing to grow with support through the years, to prove that all types of relationships, and all types of people, deserve devotion.
When we close our eyes and imagine loving someone it does not necessarily have a gender. I am referring to that intense and impulsive feeling you get when you think about love in general.
The LGBTQ+ community has a reputation for having strong emotions, with an intense amount of passion when it relates to love. The LGBTQ+ community has fought bravely and endlessly to express deep love for each other, without having a judging eye cast.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization, released “Power of the Purse,” a report about the dangerous extremist takeover of the current Congressional appropriations bill. The report discusses how anti-LGBTQ+ members of Congress are using the bills to push an agenda of hatred and division instead of doing the business their constituents sent them to Washington to do.
These riders, (a rider in government is an additional, often unrelated, provision attached to a piece of legislation to ensure its passage), attempt to placate the most extreme subset of the Republican base and intentionally ignore the views of the 80% of Americans who believe that LGBTQ+ people should be able to live lives free from discrimination. These provisions attempt to limit access to best-practice gender affirming care and give businesses and individuals a license to discriminate.
It could be easy to think that LGBTQ+ people are continuing to move toward acceptance and equality, but in fact, the opposite is true. LGBTQ+ people in America are under attack like never before. Certainly, there has been increased media attention and efforts to censor school curricula, ban books, ban transgender youth from playing sports, and ban transition-related care for transgender youth. Seeing each of these issues individually is like focusing on a single skirmish without understanding that they are part of a larger war against LGBTQ+ people in America.
Anti-LGBTQ+ forces want nothing less than to eliminate openly LGBTQ+ people from the fabric of society. They are launching fast, furious, and coordinated attacks that are astonishing in their breadth, cruelty, and flagrant disregard for personal freedoms.
Erasing LGBTQ+ people from schools and public life – They want to make it impossible for LGBTQ+ youth to be themselves in schools – banning or fining teachers and schools for even talking about LGBTQ+ people or issues, pulling books off library shelves, and banning teachers from supporting LGBTQ+ students. In short, they want these youths to be treated like they do not exist, and those who disagree will be fired, fined, or even imprisoned.
Erecting systemic and structural barriers to make change harder – By rolling back voting rights, doubling down on gerrymandering, insulating lawmakers from accountability, and more, these opponents have made it even harder than ever before for individuals to make change, or to elect leaders that reflect the values held by the majority of Americans, including support for LGBTQ+ people.
Enshrining inequality – They want to enshrine legal inequality so that LGBTQ+ people and their families will be poorer, less secure, and face more obstacles. This includes repealing or fighting nondiscrimination protections so that LGBTQ+ can be fired or not hired, refused housing, denied service in public places, and even denied medical care.
Criminalizing and banning transition so transgender people cannot be themselves – Opponents want to make it impossible for transgender people to be themselves by banning transition-related care and criminalizing supportive parents and doctors. They are also prohibiting transgender and nonbinary people from updating their identity documents like birth certificates, driver’s licenses, passports, and ID cards. They are passing policies requiring governments, schools, and teachers to only recognize sex assigned at birth.
Silencing supporters – Anti-LGBTQ+ opponents also want to silence, sue, fine, and penalize parents, teachers, doctors, companies, and others who are LGBTQ+ allies.
Perhaps Tina, (Anna Mae Bullock, for those keeping score at home), questioned it best, with her powerful, raspy mezzo-soprano voice, when she sang “What’s Love Got to Do with it.” The answer is everything!
Why?
Because in all these efforts, opponents are using increasingly dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric to vilify LGBTQ+ people. Anti-LGBTQ+ activists paint them as predators and foment violence against them. The resurgence of the “groomer” narrative – that LGBTQ+ people are explicitly sexualizing and abusing children – is particularly troubling and dangerous. These harmful narratives seek to push LGBTQ+ people to the corners of society and have them fear for their lives.
Why?
Because tolerance is no longer enough! F*ck the act of enduring or putting up with differences or uncomfortable situations with passive patience or hidden resentment.
It is time for acceptance, which represents a willful, active embrace or acknowledgement of reality, fostering inclusion, harmony, and genuine respect without judgment.
And remember …
“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”
… and it is time to watch it burn, baby burn!
Did You Know? The Catechism of the Catholic Church, a text which contains dogmas and teachings of the Church, names “homosexual acts” as “intrinsically immoral and contrary to the natural law.” While the Catholic Church does not consider “homosexual orientation” sinful in and of itself, it does have an extremely negative attitude toward it. The 1986 Letter, titled “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” states – “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” Oh, and yes, the 1986 letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, still exists and remains an official document of the Catholic Church in 2026.