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Houston, You Have a Problem… Lies, Power & Transgender Hate

Houston, You Have a Problem… Lies, Power & Transgender Hate

Last updated on: November 20, 2015 at 11:52 am by Susan Cottrell

Houston, You Have a Problem… Lies, Power & Transgender Hate 2015-11-20T11:52:49-05:00 Susan Cottrell

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I am still just sick about the new lows those Houston anti-gay, unChristlike pastors stooped to, to allow people, who just happen to be LGBTQ, to be stripped of their basic human rights. You know, equal housing, jobs, protection from being targeted and beaten up on the streets. Sickening in the extreme.

This ad depicts a man raping a small girl in a bathroom stall.

Sickening. I didn’t watch. I still have a terrifying visual in my head from Law and Order (I think it was) of a young girl trying to escape a man who’s after her—we only see his boots—and next scene is the murder crime scene. I don’t need a new visual. None of us need a new visual that rape of small children is horrifying and sick. Which of us except those perpetrators would argue with that?

That is not the point! This ad is equating trans people—who need access to women’s restrooms for their own safety—this ad is portraying trans people as pedophiles. That is not true. An unconscionable thing to say! As Sally Field said in her response to this ad campaign, “It’s a lie, it’s lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie.”

Transgender people commit the least crimes but are the victims of the most crimes.

These are the facts. Trans people are bullied, assaulted and murdered at exceedingly disproportional rates. And when these crimes are reported, police in general respond with indifference. These aren’t guesses or opinions—they’re facts.

A group of powerful pastors pooled their power to defeat giving any rights to LGBTQ people—not special rights, just basic rights, the ones you and I take for granted every single day of our lives—and we become indignant if those rights are impinged in the slightest.

A group of pastors in support of these rights for LGBTQ people stood up to these pastors, but they did not have the power behind them to counter these attacks. Really?

So it is pastors who are stripping away these people’s rights as if they are judge, jury and executioner. This is too much power for any one group, especially a group entrusted to guards people’s basic dignities, not infringe on them.

Disgusting lies, a thirst for power and transgender hate.

Let me tell you stories I know about this type of anti-gay, unChristlike pastor.

My friend, now in her 30s, was raped repeatedly from age 4 until 11 by her pastor. He warned her as he raped her that if she did not cooperate, that big Jesus in the giant painting above them would come down and finish the job. The church was dizzyingly unaware of all this—because they were groomed to trust their pastor implicitly, as so many congregations are. They were not taught wise discernment but wide-eyed submission… (to the pastor, not Jesus).

Well, that’s just an isolated story… No! It’s not.

Another friend was raped repeatedly by the youth pastor and his wife, from 6 until 16, but no one would help her. She even told the church, they publicly shamed her and made her repent of lying, and then sent her back with the pastor and wife. You can bet they got their revenge as the rapes grew excruciatingly more torturous.

She remembered years later the looks of fear on the faces of the women in the pews. She realized years later that they believed her, and they fears for their own children. But no one helped her. She also found out years later that the pastor and youth pastor were in cahoots, as the pastor’s own treachery was finally revealed (thirty years later).

The power dynamic is so strong in churches like these, there is no breaking into it.

Victims cannot not get help, because the religious system is set up to protect the leaders and ignore the women and children… and now those who just so happen to be LGBTQ.

These crimes occur in churches, in confessionals, in classrooms, on youth trips, and the perpetrator is rarely held accountable.

Yet it is this type of pastor, in just such a power dynamic, who viciously blame LGBTQ people, transgender specifically, for horrific crimes they don’t even commit.

This is just another form of protecting the powerful and sacrificing the powerless.

Jesus had a heart for the oppressed and marginalized, and strong words of rebuke against such atrocities.

People have been hoodwinked yet again in an exploitation of power.

Hearts and lives suffer. Hate wins. Power continues.

And a city weeps.

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