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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   33018 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/shows/meetthepress/blog/rcna90023

Apparently there’s been a big drop in conservative support for gay marriage, all in the space of a year.

I think this says a lot, mainly because it’s a point I see brought up by a lot of the blackpillers in this community “look, look - even conservatives support gay marriage now, there’s no stopping progressivism”.

Well, what now? Apparently the left has pushed too hard and too fast and it’s turning the GOP away. Being LGBT isn’t seen as some harmless thing anymore, especially when it seems being “tolerant” means accepting gay drag nuns on crucifixes. The parodies are no longer a parody, and grooming children to accept gender ideology seems rife in schools even in deep red states.

Recently I read about a Muslim city in america voting to ban the pride flag. This is just one example of the incoming shift and realignment being forced by progressive extremism becoming more forcibly mainstream

Just saw the perfect example. Chicago had naked pride bikers on Michigan avenue. There’s an obvious difference between ok you can get married and my daughter gets 50 year old dicks shoved in her face in the public square.

On the other hand, support for adultery went up by three points!

All in all, this still seems like polling for an extremely progressive, liberal society. In the absence of rising religiosity, there isn’t really any means by which social conservatism could spread in the modern US.

I guess if you totally discount immigration that might be true

Most Guatemalan peasant imports will be good American progressives by the third generation, tradcaths in the US are overwhelmingly non-hispanic.

Depends on your definition of Hispanic- lots of them have Mexican blood.

And in any case the ‘American Mexicans’ or whatever the term is for umpteenth generation hispanics are mostly not good progressives even as they mostly vote for democrats and aren’t strong social conservatives either.

Well, what now? Apparently the left has pushed too hard and too fast and it’s turning the GOP away. Being LGBT isn’t seen as some harmless thing anymore, especially when it seems being “tolerant” means accepting gay drag nuns on crucifixes. The parodies are no longer a parody, and grooming children to accept gender ideology seems rife in schools even in deep red states.

As another American politician said during another of the country's great culture wars: "We are now far into the [eighth] year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to [queer] agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed - 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half-[queer] and half [traditional/heteronormative]. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

No polity can long retain serious moral divisions within itself for long.

Apparently there’s been a big drop in conservative support for gay marriage, all in the space of a year.

People are saying this is big, but it doesn't seem nearly big enough given how obviously duped conservatives who supported this (heck even progressives) were by the propaganda. Lets examine the sales pitch for gay marriage.

  1. We just want what's fair. False. They immediately demanded everyone participate.

  2. This wont affect your family. False. You and your family will constantly be in court battles to keep your family together against state agents attempting to castrate your kid.

  3. This will normalize the gay community. False, they are more depraved in public than ever.

  4. Love is love. Maybe?

We just want what's fair. False. They immediately demanded everyone participate.

How? Being able to marry someone (and have the social benefits that come with it) is fair.

Is this about the cake thing (shopping around for a bakery that wont make a gay wedding cake, just to bring them to court)? Sure, I disagree with what happened there but isn't that painting with a rather large brush? I would also say holding all religious people to the actions of a crazy church would be wrong too.

You and your family will constantly be in court battles to keep your family together against state agents attempting to castrate your kid.

Do you really think this happens a lot? Maybe it's because I went to public school but I had a few teachers that were waaaay out there. I think the only difference is that now, there's social media. Yes, there are crazy teachers... It's an odd profession. But like everything, we need to keep the big picture in mind.

Note: Teachers how take it too far are bad. Some of the push back is very justified.

This will normalize the gay community. False, they are more depraved in public than ever.

I don't understand this point. Can't we say being gay is fine but maps are bad? Or must we adhere to a slippery slope?

So a small percentage of people are crazy, therefore everything is bad. Is that really your argument?

I would also say holding all religious people to the actions of a crazy church would be wrong too.

The "crazy church" in this case was the government of Colorado, which has been followed by many other states in setting the same policies. Do you see a difference?

I would also say holding all religious people to the actions of a crazy church would be wrong too.

Do you genuinely believe "the actions of a crazy church" are comparable to malicious litigants attempting to create binding legal precedents that they can weaponize against their enemies?

I think if we specify the church as the Westboro Baptist Church, then yeah, that actually sounds a bit like what they do.

The WBC never filed lawsuits against anyone, to my knowledge. People they protested filed lawsuits against them, and they won those lawsuits because "being crazy" is not a bar to exercising First Amendment rights.

You might be surprised! At least according to this article, it looks like their strategy is to try and provoke their potential targets into trying to ban them, then sue them for 1st amendment violations and regularly rack up tens of thousands in court fees. It's not a bad racket when half your family are lawyers.

Edit: whoops, link was borked.

Wasn’t the wbc financing themselves through lawsuits at one point?

Is this about the cake thing (shopping around for a bakery that wont make a gay wedding cake, just to bring them to court)? Sure, I disagree with what happened there but isn't that painting with a rather large brush? I would also say holding all religious people to the actions of a crazy church would be wrong too.

The cake guy is merely one of many. He's the one who can afford to litigate. Most people merely are forced into compliance.

Do you really think this happens a lot?

Happens a lot is a subjective call. It happening once is enough for everyone to be afraid and walk on eggshellls.

I don't understand this point. Can't we say being gay is fine but maps are bad? Or must we adhere to a slippery slope?

We can try. But the gays don't want that. And its not really clear that there is any line between gays and MAPS that is principled as they all appear to have an interest in lowering every standard.

So a small percentage of people are crazy, therefore everything is bad. Is that really your argument?

I wish the percentage was small. The LGBT mindvirus controls a significant number of public school teachers now.

You and your family will constantly be in court battles...

Does this happen a lot?

Happens a lot is a subjective call. It happening once is enough...

You moved the goal posts.

Are you OK with applying this metric to everything? Should we shut down all churches because someone got abused? Should we ban all cars because someone got their foot ran over? These examples are hyperbolic but my point is that something happening once really isn't enough.

But the gays don't want that.

I want that, I'm not straight. Do I not count?

I wish the percentage was small. The LGBT mindvirus controls a significant number of public school teachers now.

Or, the internet creates echo chambers and you've found yourself in one.

Yes, activist teachers exist and they are a problem... But how big of a problem it actually is, is another matter. This is true for most culture war issues

Are you OK with applying this metric to everything? Should we shut down all churches because someone got abused? Should we ban all cars because someone got their foot ran over? These examples are hyperbolic but my point is that something happening once really isn't enough.

I am interested in identifying emergent trends that are bad and stopping them before they become as big as the Catholic priest scandal (that public education has an ongoing and larger in volume similar problem, at seemingly similar rates is mysteriously not covered by the media). And that scandal is important to look at in the LGBT context. Most of the abuse was male-male pederasty. And these priests were protected by other priests who also had engaged in M-M sexual abuse and all these Cardinals who were high ranking and abusers circled the wagons around the low ranking ones. It is instructive.

I want that, I'm not straight. Do I not count?

Not really. Like in some infinitesimal way you do, the same as me. But just as my view that we should lower the drinking age specifically for places with lower population density holds no sway on the right, your position doesn't hold any significant sway among mainstream gay and trans advocacy groups.

Yes, activist teachers exist and they are a problem... But how big of a problem it actually is, is another matter. This is true for most culture war issues

We can say this. But we have to be honest. The BOP really is on the left in this situation. They control the schools and the higher ed people who would be doing the investigation. If they aren't publishing things, its super duper strong bayesian evidence that there is a lot of bad stuff afoot.

And its not really clear that there is any line between gays and MAPS that is principled as they all appear to have an interest in lowering every standard.

Who's "they all"? The LGBT movement is primarily by and for the edification of straight white women (I don't think the view that gays are driving the current movement makes any sense whatsoever, Threeper claims notwithstanding); so it makes sense that occupations (like 'public school teacher') that are overwhelmingly female would be all in.

Once you understand that, everything else kind of falls into place. It's now possible to understand the attitude that these things aren't harmful, because to a modern straight white woman, they aren't- stripteases are what X (usually a woman) does to seduce Y (usually a man), and in that light, claiming this somehow damages or degrades the Y doesn't make sense (and why the operative word to condemn this is a comparatively pithy "sexualization"). BDSM parades (being a larger version of this) are viewed with a similar attitude- why would seeing weird-but-ultimately-non-threatening (you know, because gay men definitely want sex with straight women) displays of sexuality degrade or harm the viewer?

(Which is kind of why the dynamic around this conversation is "but it harms the viewer by sexualizing them", which is an argument from aesthetics with scant factual backing, typically conflated with an argument on religious grounds because that's the group most known for operating as if it does have factual backing.)

As far as "secret conversations about sexuality"... if the median woman derives joy from being a social token with an underlying oppression narrative/excuse, well, it's natural for them to assume that everyone works like that, and being transgender is the tokenist token to token today.

Plus, it's a way for these women to vicariously experience being an (adoptive) mother and validate this version of the "me against the world" narrative; bonus points if you can blame it on big bad Dad.

This isn't a particularly imaginative take, but I think it's the most straightforward examination of why the claims of "this movement is intended so that strange men can fuck your son or daughter" (which is what pedo means in the mind of the general public) just haven't been resonating with the general public.

The critics can occasionally get a workable angle in painting these sorts of behaviors as molestation (and if you reverse the genders above, they would be instantly recognized as such). "Sexualization" is a first pass, "brainwashing" a slight refinement, and "they're protecting teen boys who molest your daughter and arrest you if you protest" is enough to propel an anti-molestation candidate into office in Virginia.

In summary, I'm at a complete loss for why a movement by and for straight, white, misandrist women want to increase the amount of exploitative sex men have with their daughters, and I think everyone else is too.

Also, I think everyone with eyes can see that the standard for "how old should a person be before it's kosher for (older) adults to have sex with them" has only been rising. One has to cook up conspiracy theories such as "well obviously they are outwardly lying while fucking kids on the down low even more", while ignoring what seems to me like a very obvious fact - the less trust society has in close, individual adult-child relationships, the fewer avenues there are for exploitation.

The amount of thirsting over underage male characters I observe, outside of specialized places, is much lower than underage female characters so the exact disparity is hard to observe as well. Millions want to fuck Asuka, barely anyone wants to fuck Shinji.

Plus, it's not uncommon for people to point out the weirdness that kids can apparently consent to virtually anything at any age if you can put a medical spin on it, but women in their 20s can't consent to a relationship with a man more than a few months older.

Maybe those who introduce such standards don't think they're "just putting a medical spin on it", but rather that the case is medical? Then it's different standards of agency for different fields, which is how it worked everywhere since time immemorial, by my rough estimate.

The women consent thing is weird, but there are still age limits for other things that are set above adulthood - like being the President - so there's some precedent.

More comments

I mean, there is a pretty obvious principled line between adult homosexuality and pederasty. I'll give you a hint - it's the same one straight people use.

What do you think that principled line is?

But gays do not.

I do.

Then you appear to be an outlier. Because performing stripteases in front of 9 year olds, public BDSM parades, and having secret conversations with children about sex that parents cant know about are core tenants of the movement as a whole right now.

You are doing nothing but weakmanning and booing your outgroup here, and if you are going to double down on how "the gays" are all (or 99%) groomers and pedarasts, you really need to bring some evidence, not just your feels.

I just warned you to stop this kind of low effort snarling. So take three days off to chill out.

There's not infrequent messaging warning young women and girls about predatory pederasts. You can find frequent discussions by women and girls recounting when they first felt the leers of men as the objects of male sexual desire. That many will use the vocabulary of victimization I think is unhelpful.

Is there still messaging directed at boys and young men warning of the homosexual pederast? Do men and boys still have male only spaces where they're allowed to exclude homosexuals to have the frank discussions necessary to convey the danger posed?

I don't think there was ever a lot of messaging directed at boys and young men warning of the dangers of pederasty, now or in the past. In addition, I don't think the atmosphere of shame and silence around homosexuality in the past actually empowered people to resist pederasty. If anything, it gave cover to pederasts, who preyed freely on homosexual teenagers and young men, knowing that society did not see them as worthy of protection. I think things have actually gotten better - the shaming and ostracization of notorious pederasts like Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer indicates that things are moving in the right direction.

I'm not sure what purpose excluding homosexuals would serve in that regard. Homosexual teenagers are more at risk than anyone from predation. As well as that, homosexuality is different from biological sex in that it is not readily identifiable. What are you going to do, start testing kids for homosexuality so you can start excluding them from a young age?

I mean, excluding homosexuals from certain positions obviously relies on self regulation- that much is true- but messaging regarding the dangers of homosexual predation was very frequent in times past, and plenty of organizations allowed it to inform their thinking in some way.

Obviously the Boy Scouts didn’t manage to prevent homosexual pederasts from serving as scoutmasters, but the idea that it wasn’t their intention to do so seems facially absurd.

Have you seen "Boys Beware"? The stereotype of the sinister predatory homosexual was for a time the only depiction of male homosexuals in popular media.

I was more concerned with the exclusion of adult homosexuals from spaces traditionally for men and boys.

ephebophile would be more accurate in the heterosexual context, though I've seen pederast used as a synonym

As someone who

  • hasn’t been asked to “participate,”

  • doesn’t know anyone in court over gender, let alone castration, and

  • has seen no signs of increased gay depravity…

Prove it.

From where I’m standing, the sea change comes from trans activism getting into the Overton window—and from the media realizing what a good wedge it makes. I don’t think gay rights have gotten any more invasive since gay marriage. You’re hearing more about them because the movement has picked up some easier targets.

I think I would be putting my career at risk if I made loud enough anti-gender-ideology in public schools statements. And my career has nothing to do with public schools.

Catholic schools were supposed to be my escape hatch for my kids, but apparently not even they are safe from this nonsense.

and from the media realizing what a good wedge it makes

It makes a good wedge because the bailey (the activism part) is utterly insane, but there's a pleasant motte that you can herd a lot of empathetic normies into.

It was never going to maintain it's acceleration once the normies realize what the activists actually expected of them -- now the question is whether the LGB motte can/will shed the T bailey and let the issue sink back into the obscurity it richly deserves -- or whether the wedge will keep being hammered in.

The media will just keep saying it isn't happening, the normies will forget they know it's happening, and it'll keep happening.

The media is going to ignore their favoured candidates losing elections in Virginia over it?

No, they'll say it's not happening EVEN HARDER.

There may be a lot of ruin left in the nation, but I'd say the amount left in large media organizations is becoming noticeably finite.

how obviously duped conservatives who supported this (heck even progressives) were by the propaganda

While I think there's an amount of Lizardman's Constant in the survey responses, ah yes.

People who don't agree with you are obvious dupes.

I mean, who but dupes fooled by propaganda could possibly have any objections to recognising the heroic work of such groups?

People who don't agree with you are obvious dupes.

What part of the promises of the gay-marriage promoter have been kept?

Apologies, I didn't read your comment thoroughly enough. I agree about the gay marriage propaganda bit, and thought Andrew Sullivan was being too naive (or opportunistic) in arguing that legalising gay marriage would give gay sexual activity an outlet where they didn't have to be promiscuous, that marriage would - the same way for straight men - be a civilising force. That didn't happen, and now Sullivan finds himself on the trailing edge of the Overton Window, being excoriated for his views on trans rights activism which (to me at least) echo the kind of opposition to gay rights activism, and the same jeers of "phobe! hater! ist!" were being thrown at the straights.

How does it feel, now the boot is on the other foot?

The supermajority of progressives have kept the promises. Not a single conservative, on the other hand, was able to deliver God, for one example.

  • -20

Not a single conservative, on the other hand, was able to deliver God, for one example.

I dunno, all the screaming about Roe vs Wade and "I'm getting sterilised because I'm afraid they're going to ban birth control next" seems to be some sort of signal that maybe something or other happened.

Abortion rollback is to God as progressive overreaches are to FALGSC (except of course God is less realistic).

Abortion rollback happened though, and I believe God is real, so conservatism gets a win on both there so far as I'm concerned 😀

Really? No more piss orgies? No more bathouses? No bullying of Christians into participating into gay weddings? No attempts at child indoctrination?

No more stoning? No more conversion camps? No more "camps for troubled youths"? No more parental abuse?

Two can play the "as long as your side has even one excess you're duping us" game.

We have the conversion camps still, and camps for troubled youths. They are just run by pedos trying to trans and gay them...

You and @sun are both just engaging in low effort "I know you are but what am I"s here. Knock it off.

Has 2) actually happened? I’m willing to believe it has if anyone can provide examples, but the most that ever seems to happen over the parents’ wishes is schools using different pronouns, and every case where a parent loses custody for not being gender affirming seems to be to his ex wife.

every case where a parent loses custody for not being gender affirming seems to be to his ex wife.

Yeah, fuck dads, who gives a shit about them?

Sure, but that happens anyways- courts favoring the woman even when it doesn’t make sense is not a feature of trans ideology, it’s just the way it is.

Losing access to your kids because "bitches be crazed" or whatever will make a guy mad, sure -- but as you say is something people are pretty used to.

Losing access to your kid and watching him/her sterilized and scarred for life kind of raises the ante is all. Seeing this happen to other people seems not unlikely to calcify political opinions on the underlying issue.

Yes. Or at least the mother claims it has: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12221449/California-mom-claims-19-year-old-daughter-murdered-gender-ideology.html

Additional quote:

Why are there so many transgender in foster care? Because this state take them from their families, tells them to run, then steals them

I don't know how many is "so many" - but it suggests it happened more than once.

ex wife.

A mentally ill ex wife getting to control decisions of a potentially mentally ill teenager seems to be a particular failure mode of the courts here. There is no sane legal system where this would happen. And when people notice a normal dad losing a custody battle to an insane mom, that is, indeed, a broken promise the gay advocates made.

If momma is mentally ill, the game is over already. This is not the legal system's fault.

When two parents split, one parent must have ultimate authority over the kid. For well and good reasons, this is usually the mom. For there never to be an bad outcome like this, courts have to be able to divine who is sane with 100% accuracy, which is obviously impossible.

The legal system prior to transgenderism also did this, regularly.

Like you can argue that dads should get a fairer shake in custody battles, but it’s not because of trans ideology that they don’t.

Taken individually, no single law in any state completely strips parents’ rights over the care and mental health treatment of their troubled minor teens. But pieced together, laws in California, Oregon, and Washington place troubled minor teens as young as 13 in the driver’s seat when it comes to their own mental health care—including “gender affirming” care—and renders parents powerless to stop them.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/when-the-state-comes-for-your-kids

Article presents an example of a 14 year old checking into a youth center and parents unable to retrieve them despite no cps investigation.

One mother I spoke with had had Child Protective Services called on her by her own therapist, after she had explained in therapy why she had chosen not to “affirm” her young trans-identified teen daughter. In that instance, the mom said, the social worker accepted the mother’s explanation that this did not constitute abuse. She counts herself lucky.

In that instance, the mom said, the social worker accepted the mother’s explanation that this did not constitute abuse.

If the California bill passes, that will in future be recognised as abuse (amended parts in italics):

ASSEMBLY BILL NO. 957

Introduced by Assembly Member Wilson

(Principal coauthor: Senator Wiener)

February 14, 2023

An act to amend Section 3011 of the Family Code, relating to family law.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 957, as amended, Wilson. Family law: gender identity.

Existing law governs the determination of child custody and visitation in contested proceedings and requires the court, for purposes of deciding custody, to determine the best interests of the child based on certain factors, including, among other things the health, safety, and welfare of the child.

This bill, for purposes of this provision, would include a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child.

BILL TEXT

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1.

Section 3011 of the Family Code is amended to read:

(a) In making a determination of the best interests of the child in a proceeding described in Section 3021, the court shall, among any other factors it finds relevant and consistent with Section 3020, consider all of the following:

(1) (A) The health, safety, and welfare of the child.

(B) As used in this paragraph, the health, safety, and welfare of the child includes a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity.

(2) (A) A history of abuse by one parent or another person seeking custody against any of the following:

(i) A child to whom the parent or person seeking custody is related by blood or affinity or with whom the parent or person seeking custody has had a caretaking relationship, no matter how temporary.

(ii) The other parent.

(iii) A parent, current spouse, or cohabitant of the parent or person seeking custody, or a person with whom the parent or person seeking custody has a dating or engagement relationship.

(B) (i) As a prerequisite to considering allegations of abuse, the court may require independent corroboration, including, but not limited to, written reports by law enforcement agencies, child protective services or other social welfare agencies, courts, medical facilities, or other public agencies or private nonprofit organizations providing services to victims of sexual assault or domestic violence.

(ii) As used in this paragraph, “abuse against a child” means “child abuse or neglect” as defined in Section 11165.6 of the Penal Code.

(iii) Abuse against another person, as described in clause (ii) or (iii) of subparagraph (A), means “abuse” as defined in Section 6203.

(3) The nature and amount of contact with both parents, except as provided in Section 3046.

(4) (A) The habitual or continual illegal use of controlled substances or the habitual or continual abuse of alcohol or prescribed controlled substances by either parent. Before considering these allegations, the court may first require independent corroboration, including, but not limited to, written reports from law enforcement agencies, courts, probation departments, social welfare agencies, medical facilities, rehabilitation facilities, or other public agencies or nonprofit organizations providing drug and alcohol abuse services.

(B) As used in this paragraph, “controlled substances” has the same meaning as defined in the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 11000) of the Health and Safety Code).

(5) (A) When allegations about a parent pursuant to paragraph (2) or (4) have been brought to the attention of the court in the current proceeding and the court makes an order for sole or joint custody or unsupervised visitation to that parent, the court shall state its reasons in writing or on the record. In these circumstances, the court shall ensure that an order regarding custody or visitation is specific as to time, day, place, and manner of transfer of the child as set forth in subdivision (c) of Section 6323.

(B) This paragraph does not apply if the parties stipulate in writing or on the record regarding custody or visitation.

(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), the court shall not consider the sex, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation of a parent, legal guardian, or relative in determining the best interests of the child.

The joke going around is that Senator Weiner is this guy (he's the one not in a harness, at the Folsom Street Fair).

I suppose I'm taking the most extreme, cynical view here but on a cursory reading in a custody dispute, if parent A is the stable one but refuses to maintain that Johnny is now Susie, and parent B is a drug-addled wreck whose house is a rubbish dump but goes "Sure, Johnny's a chick now!", then B gets custody.

But surely that could never happen.

The Daily Mail had a better headline for that story,

Four kids aged between 5 and 10 taken into care after being found at a drag party with a dead trans woman's body on the floor and drugs and sex toys scattered throughout 'hoarder' home

The Boston cops said that the earlier stories were exaggerated, I think four kids in an apartment with a dead body and (probably) drugs being taken is enough.

There's also the latest 'it would never happen so stop saying it would, bigots, there is no such thing as a slippery slope' story to come out, but to be fair, it's hard enough on trans people without holding them accountable for politicians as well.

This is part of my beef with the uncritical 'fly the new Progress flag' acceptance and probably why that poll showed slipping support for gay marriage: until and unless the 'trans community' - if there is such a thing - comes to grips with 'okay, not every person who claims to be trans is indeed not mentally ill and is genuinely trans and it's not a fetish, so yeah there needs to be some sort of procedure in place and it's not medical gatekeeping to insist that simply saying 'yeah I'm a girl now' and trying to grow out your hair is not enough', then shit like this will keep happening, and ordinary people will start pushing back harder, and then the 'it's transphobia and trans genocide, protect our trans kids!' cries will get louder in response.

EDIT: How could anyone misgender this perfectly valid woman, unless it was out of bigotry and transphobia? (Yeah, that's snarky but for feck's sake 'she' is not even making an effort).

Look into some of the things they’re teaching kids in public schools. Or what happens when your kid chooses to be trans. They can give your kid a new name, and he can live his entire school day as the other gender. They don’t need to tell you anything. In some states, once you find out, any hint of rejection of the new trans identity is grounds for them taking your kids away via CPS.

I think people are just calling the "you take all of the alphabet claims seriously or you're a bigot against all of them" bluff

But it's very different to bite the bullet in a survey and actually pushing for policy in the real world.

My bet is that it amounts to nothing.

I am for government getting out of the marriage issue completely and just letting people sign more specific contracts. Want to sign a contract that revolves around the duties of child-rearing with your straight girlfriend? Great. Want to sign a contract that pinpoints the obligations of both parties in your apartment that you share with your gay partner? Great.

But for now I guess I will just sit back and watch the left-authoritarians and the right-authoritarians fight each other as usual.

I am for government getting out of the marriage issue completely and just letting people sign more specific contracts.

That's tempting (and a position I recall arguing for in in-person political discussions pre-Obergefell), but the government has assigned a lot of benefits to married couples including taxes, health insurance, immigration, and probably some others I'm forgetting. Getting the government out of marriage involves significantly changing all of those. Maybe possible, but it would be a large project with a lot of winners and losers on various issues.

I'd be happy eliminating all those marriage benefits and instead granting them in even greater quantity to couples raising children.

government getting out of the marriage issue completely and just letting people sign more specific contracts

If the government is getting out of it, who enforces the contracts?

Contracts are enforced by civil law, as usual.

And who enforces that the law in Utah is recognised as the law in Washington or Minnesota? We went through that with states recognising/not recognising gay marriage, which is where the misfortunate Colorado baker fell foul of the law at the very start - the gay couple went off and got 'married' in Massachusetts, returned home to Colorado - where gay marriage was not legal or recognised - and as part of their celebrations went and ordered a cake.

The refusal led to the lawsuit where I found it ironic that the baker was found guilty of refusing to bake a cake for something the state did not recognise as real. The state did not recognise a gay marriage as being the same as a straight marriage, but the Civil Rights Commission said he was guilty of discrimination.

The structure of creating, administering, and enforcing laws is pseudo-government itself. A specific contract is great - but what if the girlfriend/boyfriend moves to another state and declares the contract conditions void there because State B has different property division laws than State A? Who do you appeal to, if the courts in California decide against you and you feel you have not been given your rights?

Althing? https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-njals-saga

But I think what the upper comment meant is that the government does not choose which contracts to enforce, as long as they are OK with the participants (and pass some basic low-bar test - like no slavery, no requirement of illegal acts, etc.)

But for now I guess I will just sit back and watch the left-authoritarians and the right-authoritarians fight each other as usual.

You'd think after a couple hundred years of doing this since the French Revolution we'd have run out of authoritarians by now, but they just keep making more of them.

There's a lot of ruin in a civilization.

I think a bigger cause for concern is the 6% drop in Democrat support. What's up with that? What changed with regards to gay marriage in the past year that caused Democrats to back off?

Democrat voters =/= democrat party.

Lots of people vote democrat because they dislike the republicans for no woke reasons. I am sure when I list reasons, people will rightly point out that many of them apply to democrats as well but are more commonly associated with republicans.

a) Health care being expensive/inaccessible

b) Neoconservative warmongering

c) Republicans clearly valuing corporate profits over the environment.

d) Trickle down economics not trickling down.

Thinking all democrat voters are like the democrat party itself is

Don't forget: I don't really Like the Democrats but I'm pretty sure Republicans hate me.

Applies pretty extensively to many ethnic minorities, hell to many gays, to people who live in cities generally.

Doesn't particularly matter whether they are right or wrong, just that they believe it to be true.

I think objectively you'd have to be pretty cucked to vote R in Florida as a naturalized or even 2nd gen Chinese immigrant right now.

I think objectively you'd have to be pretty cucked to vote R in Florida as a naturalized or even 2nd gen Chinese immigrant right now.

Can you explain this statement?

Florida has made it illegal for Chinese citizens to own land within certain distances of military facilities or essential infrastructure, and limits their holdings anywhere in the state to two acres. Notably, the intersecting radii foreclose any Chinese citizen owning land anywhere in Miami, and possibly other city centers as well.

https://apnews.com/article/florida-chinese-citizens-property-law-4aeecc7a9470d03726658f1ef7b1d1f1

Somehow the limit to two acres is actually more insulting than anything else.

Since China bans dual citizenship, this does not apply to anyone "naturalized or even 2nd gen Chinese immigrant". I would not feel particularly cucked by a similar law targeting Indians.

https://www.dualcitizenshipreport.org/dual-citizenship/china/

China doesn't allow dual citizenship, so this isn't a practical concern for children of Chinese immigrants. I suppose it's still cucked if you think they wanted to ban people who were ethnically Chinese but had to settle for less, but it seems more likely to me that Florida merely wants to ban people who are connected with the current Chinese government and don't want to require a full investigation every time someone buys land.

It's theoretically possible for a person to be against Chinese immigration but perfectly friendly to ABCs.

Most of my Chinese friends report that these theoretical specimens are rare; far more common is people who hate Chinese immigration being repeatedly asked where are you REALLY from? Or catching the occasional racial slur.

More to the point, if you say "I don't hate you but I don't want more people like you to be here" that's iffy right off the bat; and it doesn't matter what's true it matters what one would perceive as an ABC. And you have to have terminal pathological levels of charity to one's enemies to believe it. In other words, a cuck.

Beer-bellied UAW (et al) workers who are still voting Dem because it was the done thing in the 80s could make up the 6% all by themselves!

My baseless speculation is that these are older people who bought into the "we can't change who we are" rhetoric from years past, but have been spooked by the the obvious into thinking, "hey wait a second, I bet a lot of these gay kids today could change who they are."

As Anita Bryant famously said:

As a mother I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children. Therefore, they must recruit our children.

The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality, for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must recruit, must freshen their ranks.

What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life.

She was called a bigot and cancelled, but time has proven her right.

That's true of ideology and religion, but I don't think it's true of gays.

I'd wager that as an extension of that old "if you wiped out all religions and record thereof tomorrow, the same religions would never arise again, even if different ones did" though experiment, if you erased all knowledge of homosexuality from the akashic record of humanity... You'd probably still have homosexuality happening again in short order. No matter how repressive the society, it still happens. It happens in non-human species.

"if you wiped out all religions and record thereof tomorrow, the same religions would never arise again, even if different ones did"

Yet another example if "if you were wrong, then you would be wrong." If religion is false then it is purely cultural, yes. Assuming that it is false, and then using the fact that it would therefore be cultural as evidence that it is false, is extremely common and annoying.

What is common and annoying is people of different religions assuming that theirs is the true one, with quite scant evidence. Even in spaces that are ostensibly concerned about epistemology.

Purely logically, at least 99 of 100 One True Lord Gods must be fake, or all of them are not as One True as the religions teach.

Purely logically, at least 99 of 100 One True Lord Gods must be fake, or all of them are not as One True as the religions teach.

Sure, and the same is true of absence of religion. Logically, out of the set of contradictory belief systems, at most one is correct.

Besides, I don't care what belief systems we're talking about, you can't just manufacture your own evidence out of nowhere like that.

Even assuming another revelation, how else would it go that the exact same revelation would occur again? Even if the Quran or the New Testament were to be revealed again, the culturally and historically contingent events would not arise in the same way. I think the argument here is more in the definition of "the same religion" here.

I mean yeah there would certainly be some minor differences, the question is how major they have to be before it counts as a new religion. If there is a true religion though, presumably the same religion would arise again, minor differences in beliefs and historical context notwithstanding.

So you're saying if there's a sufficient similarity of values and beliefs it is substantively the same to you?

Hayy Ibn Yaqzun argues the same, that Islam effectively arises spontaneously absent human interference.

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True homosexuality is probably not a choice, but homosexual behavior as a kink (a solid part of what's called 'bisexuality' is likely caused by abuse.

Odds of bisexuals reporting CSA are way higher than for straights.

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) occurs in all cultures and societies (Pereda, Guilera, Forns, & Gómez-Benito, 2009; Stoltenborgh, van Ijzendoorn, Euser, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2011). In addition, although not all research has demonstrated that the prevalence of CSA among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals is substantially higher than it is in heterosexual populations (Brennan, Hellerstedt, Ross, & Welles, 2007; Meston, Heiman, & Trapnell, 1999), higher prevalence of CSA among nonheterosexual individuals has been revealed in participants from the United States (e.g., Balsam, Rothblum, & Beauchaine, 2005), Canada (e.g., Saewyc, Pettingell, & Skay, 2004), and Australia (e.g., Zietsch et al., 2012), as well as in studies using the retrospective methods (e.g., Hughes et al., 2010), prospective methods (e.g., Wilson & Widom, 2010), and meta-analysis (e.g., Friedman et al., 2011). Moreover, empirical investigations aimed to determine the chronology of CSA and nonheterosexual orientation in adulthood are limited. Thus, the objective of the present study was to explore whether nonheterosexual orientation increases the risk of CSA by adding the variable of childhood gender nonconformity (CGNC) and applying the instrumental variable method.

from:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1079063215618378

Seems like a motte/bailey.

Motte: As a group, homos must replenish from non-homosexuals' offspring, necessarily; if they didn't do this, they'd already not exist.

Bailey: Homosexuality is a choice; what's more, it is actually a movement agentically interested in swelling its numbers. To do so, they must make our kids gay.

The problem with the bailey is the assumption that ... either, kids should rather be gay but stay their lives firmly in the closet; or the way that this looks from the outside, kids should just "choose" to "be" straight. Which, as far as I can tell, is and remains largely impossible.

remains largely impossible

How long do they have to desist from same sex behavior before they're straight, a year, five?

It's possible for people to find their way out of homosexuality, but if they've made it large portion of their identity and social group it's difficult, like leaving a cult.

I mean, obviously it's possible for gays to procreate with women, since it's what happened historically. You can stick your dick anywhere, what you cannot change easily or at all is what you need to see in front of you, in reality or your mind's eye, to get hard in the first place.

How long do you have to desist from hetero behavior before you become gay?

No time limit. Once you internalize and accept the gay idpol, you've caught the gay.

As the line goes... if you can be converted to gay by "idpol", you were gay and in the closet, mate. Personally I've noted 0 increase in urges of same-sex sex between my puberty and now.

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I didn't have gay sex for over five years, but I was still gay at the end of it.

No gay sex or no sex? Were you trying to have a different sort of life during this period?

Why would I? The notion of having sex with women is totally repellent to me, and likely most women would find me equally repellent, since I lack any positive qualities. To be honest I don't really even like having sex with men, but I do find them very attractive.

How long do they have to desist from same sex behavior before they're straight, a year, five?

Doesn't matter. As long as the impulse remains, they're still gay, even if they deny it.

Like yeah, you can repress, and live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to -- imagine how you'd feel trying to carve a life out with a morbidly obese 3/10 munter to try and "cure" your attraction to fit, attractive people.

Like yeah, you can repress, and live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to -- imagine how you'd feel trying to carve a life out with a morbidly obese 3/10 munter to try and "cure" your attraction to fit, attractive people.

This is rank exaggeration. Ugly people do get married and by all accounts live happy lives. Just like them, I expect nearly all people, absent powerful cultural narratives to the contrary, can learn to love whoever they end up married to. I believe this of all gender combinations.

Shrug. Love and attraction are completely different things, as well you should know, assuming you have parents or siblings. Missing out on an entire massive chunk of the human experience, or mutual attraction between partners, is probably not healthy for people. See: incels.

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And this is a problem why exactly? They expect me to similarly repress myself if I'm to live and participate in society, so why should I care if other people expect it of them?

Who's expecting you to get into a gay relationship against your sexuality, exactly?

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live a thoroughly miserable existence attached to someone who you don't really love or feel attracted to

This seems a particularly worse case outcome.

Men with same sex attraction seem especially prone to drug, chemical, alcohol and parphillia induced or adjacent sexual activity. This seems throughly miserable to me. I guess they're fortunate that in current year there's an abundance of degeneracy to allow them to live their inner truths publicly.

'Straight' people sublimate all sorts of impulses and desires into more traditionally socially acceptable directions.

Men with same sex attraction seem especially prone to drug, chemical, alcohol and parphillia induced or adjacent sexual activity.

This is a subculture problem more than anything else. You might as well complain that people who choose to wear birkenstocks also engage in this behaviour. Obviously we need to discourage wearing of birkenstocks!

There are plenty of us who opt out of that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the stereotype is, to a degree, self reinforcing; people see this kind of thing touted as how "all gays" are, and so fledgling gays, newly discovering their sexuality, think that's "how to be gay" -- because it's a confusing time, and any kind of guidance is manna from heaven if you don't have a really well developed sense of personal identity at that point (and most teens don't).

I despair and despise every day that Drag Race and circuit parties have become the mainstream representation of being gay in the anglosphere.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-ex-gay?wprov=sfti1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/09/03/conversion-therapy-center-founder-who-sought-turn-lgbtq-christians-straight-now-says-hes-gay-rejects-cycle-shame/

Probably when the high profile ones stop switching back.

I do think conversion therapy bans are signs of creeping fascism, but the ex gay thing has a spotty record at best. Rs committed a massive own goal by endorsing divorce over the years, endorsing a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty. From there gay marriage only makes sense.

a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty

And yet it was proposed as being merciful, and opposition to it as being cruel. Same with abortion today: oppose it, and you're a monster. Give in on the hard cases grounds (incest, rape) and then you're a hypocrite if you don't give in on the elective abortions.

Aren't the high profile attention seeking ex-gays more likely to be performative?

The ex-gay thing is a bit weird but in a similar way so is the detrans thing, both have some genuine members that were likely groomed / self groomed into alphabetism. That there's no reliable treatment or search for a cure among the establishment. There isn't t a well worn path out. Much mental illnesses chronic. Worse many of this cohort are subject to vitriol from their former alphabet compatriots.

I know several seemingly happy, married with children, people that were practicing LGB in the 90's. They don't talk about it, and would be unlikely to join an ex-gay organization.

Elsewhere in this thread it was claimed that the largest increase in alphabetism was amongst the 'B', presumably they have more options / choices. Am I still B if I've not had sexual activity other than my opposite sex spouse in 20 years?

The destigmatization and ease of divorce as it fits into the larger context of the sexual revolution and feminism has had a number of deleterious effects.

self fulfillment over duty

It's a very particular type of self fulfillment that frequently looks like self-centeredness or narcissism.

How many white parties and how much cock does it take to find self fulfillment? I find this less creepy than marriage and gaybies, and the associated assisted reproduction baby trafficking.

Am I still B if I've not had sexual activity other than my opposite sex spouse in 20 years?

If you're still attracted to the same sex, yes.

Or, what, is nobody truly straight until they have straight sex the first time? "Nobody has a sexuality until they lose their virginity" is a logical follow-on from this idea that you must actively practice your sexuality in order to possess it.

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Rs committed a massive own goal by endorsing divorce over the years, endorsing a view of human life that centers on self fulfillment over duty. From there gay marriage only makes sense.

It's crazy to me how blind they are to this mistake. Just on it's face, divorce is a much more lethal blow to the sanctity of marriage than gay marriage could ever be. But the funnier thing is that even if you're just seething about dudes getting married, getting rid of no-fault divorce would probably solve that for you automatically.

Is that chart accurate? Is gen Z really identifying at almost 1/5 gay? What the heck…

The jump from 5% to 20% in 10 years is shocking if true, good lord.

There's no cost to saying you're "he/they" now instead of "he/him".

I genuinely think it's because of the oppression stacking: if you're vanilla cis/straight, this is The Worst Thing In The World. At most, you can be an ally, but you still get the blame for systemic oppression. But if you can just somehow make your way over to the oppressed/victim side, then you're in clover (relatively speaking, because you'll still be judged on the scale of 'are you white/able bodied etc.')

Easy way to do that is to be some flavour of 'queer' - nonbinary, for instance (the ones I've seen online are 9 out of 10 recognisably female, and the remaining ones are just plain weird).

It’s mostly ‘bisexuals’ and ‘queers’ who coincidentally only date the opposite sex.

I think the BTQA is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that stat, but it's still bizarre even if it's mostly 'B'Q'A'.

May be worth noting the difference is almost entirely due to a growth in the bisexual category.

And much of that may just be due to people having lower thresholds—low but nonzero numbers on the Kinsey scale might have previously been considered heterosexual, but now bisexual (at least, if the person wishes to think of themselves that way).

Pete, Chase and their gayby?

The whole board shifted conservative. I can't count a single liberal shift in the list if you click through.

There's no good reason "Trans bad" would lead to a shift towards favoring the Death Penalty and opposing gambling.

What seems more likely is that the sample skewed more conservative or something like that. It feels distinctly off. Did people who are almost certainly planning on voting for Trump really decide to oppose "Divorce" and "Pre/extramarital Sex?"

Excepting the death penalty, I've also taken a wholesale shift rightward. I used to hold a statewide elected office in the youth wing of the Democratic Party. The riots of 2020 and Democratic responses to them, COVID, gender ideology, racial politics, and a few other things have completely shifted my political outlook.

I used to be an atheist and now I'm on the path to Catholic baptism. The last few years have been an absolutely wild ride.

I used to be an atheist and now I'm on the path to Catholic baptism.

Both congratulations and commiserations! The barque of Peter is a leaky old boat but it's been like that literally since the Twelve Apostles, so grab a bucket and keep bailing!

That sounds like quite a story. Have you shared the whole thing it anywhere before?

Congratulations on your upcoming babtism!

The sample probably skewed right because we’re in an economic mess while the President represents the left. It’d be the opposite if Trump were in charge. I swear this is a documented effect, but I’m having a terrible time searching for it.

If you look at the provided line graph, there's a fair degree of randomness along the trend line. If it continues next year, then it might represent a real change.

Yeah. And it if it dips the independent line, too. That’s the first place I’d expect to see if a change is really alienating people.

I think this 'toss captures very well the feelings of a lot of people on the right wing.

It's easy being pro-gay when they're being thrown off roofs by your religious ennemies and only demand the same rights as everybody else.

It's much harder when they're arguing that your kids should be exposed to graphic pornography, lewd spectacles and make political alliances to destroy you.

Activists have failed to understand the same thing they failed to understand about abortion: that it was a compromise not a surrender.

They've made all the arguments about there not being a slippery slope, that all they wanted was just this one decent thing, and then once they got it, proceeded to just keep on pushing for more radical things. Evoking directly the feeling that used to be the butt of the joke made of their ennemies.

As someone who was on the other side of the argument back then, I've had some introspection about how much more consideration I should now give to the bible thumping bigots I used to dismiss, because they were right and I was wrong.

These days I'm about of the opinion that the proper place for my people in society is one of discrete indifference, which is why I was always skeptical of "pride" and now even of the idea of a marriage that very few actually use in practice. I've always feared this push for celebration of what physically can't be adopted by everybody would create some backlash that would push the West towards a more Islamic direct confrontation, and here we are.

I think it's very difficult to keep spouting the line that you're an oppressed and repressed minority when the White House flies your flag alongside the national flag and you're getting your tits out in public on the front lawn.

As someone who was on the other side of the argument back then, I've had some introspection about how much more consideration I should now give to the bible thumping bigots I used to dismiss, because they were right and I was wrong.

This is where I wound up as well. I was aggressively in favor of gay marriage, but I have to admit that I was plainly wrong about there not being any slippery slope. I genuinely thought that gay marriage represented the end point of winning equal rights for gay people, not just another battle on the way to whatever weirdness comes next. Such is the peril of youth, I suppose.

What's wild to me is how many of the activists that I thought I was on the same side as, but am now significantly to the right of, don't seem to have any personal memory of having held a position other than insisting that government funding of trans hormones for kids was morally obligatory and constitutionally required. The number that must have actually thought that a decade ago must have been vanishingly small (the term "gender-affirming" didn't even exist yet), but it is now the bog-standard Democrat position.

If I had to guess, those Democrats hadn't given any significant thought to the issue beforehand. So when it became a culture war topic, their first exposure to it was through the lens of the party-approved messaging. Thus, Democrats can credibly say that as long as they've been considering it, they've been in favor of giving "trans kids" hormone treatments.

The reason they hadn't considered it beforehand, of course, is that it's so completely insane that it would never enter an average person's mind except in the most cartoonish dystopian cartoons.

Either this is evidence of the upcoming gay holocaust(not likely). Or it's a sort of boomer/X'er deathrattle where a few too many of them at once are realizing the propaganda they've been parroting all their lives was actually just appeasing lipservice designed entirely around getting them shut up until we get to the next era of progress. Where we can play the same game again, but with more progress, obviously.

On the other hand I'd be interested to know just what the effect of drastically lower marriage rates in general does to these sort of polls. If you no longer view 'marriage' as an important thing it might be much easier to be against it. To that end I'd be surprised if there is any genuine uptick in anti-gay stuff.

I am actually quite confident most of the 'anti-gay' sentiment expressed by anyone goes no further than pining for the 90's. I.e. 'Can we please go back to the world your old propaganda promised us where we all just pretend to be open and tolerant about 'sexuality'. Seeing people actually doing it grosses me out.'

Most people today seem to be too conflict averse to verbalize any visceral anti-gay sentiment. Though you can see some of it every now and then when STD stuff comes around, like with 'monkeypox'.

I think it’s both more and less. I don’t see it as just about the gays. Sure there’s a lot of reasons that gayness is hated on, especially as it touches how the schools handle this, but that’s not the only thing here.

A second factor is that this is a fulcrum of the power structure dictating very alien attitudes and beliefs at odds with Amerikaner traditional culture. Amerikaner culture is based in traditional Christianity, Western European folk culture, and a very pioneering spirit. And what Gay is symbolic of is the degree to which those traditions are not respectable in any form in elite circles. No one who has ambitions to become an elite would ever admit to adherence to any of those Amerikaner ideals. In fact, they have made it very clear that such ideals must be eliminated. And so, like ancient Israel riots when the governor disrespected them by sacrificing pigs in Jerusalem, the people who believe in Amerikaner ideals are fighting back at the most obvious symbols of that disrespect. Gays aren’t just hated because they’re weird, but because they’re like those pigs — an open declaration that “you and your stupid backwards ways are no longer tolerated, and we hold the power here.”

It, and a lot of MAGA Trumpism are products of an almost anti-colonial backlash of people who have no power to make themselves heard running as hard as they can to be as loud and obnoxious as possible in order to tell the colonial power in the mega cities that they and their culture are not wanted. The traditional Baptist in Georgia probably wouldn’t care about gays in California if they’d let him raise his kids as traditional Baptists. They wouldn’t mind gays or even transgender people doing whatever they wanted to if their kids weren’t being sent to schools that promoted the agenda, if every sport, tv show, and movie weren’t openly hostile to them, their beliefs, and their right to peacefully live as they want to in their own land.

Babtists in Georgia very much wanted to forbid gays from getting married in California, DOMA, until they lost that battle.

The Defense of Marriage Act would not have forbidden gays from getting married in California; it merely meant Georgia would not have to recognize such a marriage.

The traditional Baptist in Georgia probably wouldn’t care about gays in California if they’d let him raise his kids as traditional Baptists.

Nobody living in Georgia is going to face actual legal obstacles to raising his kids as traditional baptists anytime soon. And in practice it doesn’t seem like ultra-progressive overreach is targeted against fundamentalists or affects them very much; it’s mostly dysfunctional but upwardly mobile normies that these things get targeted against.

They require, by title 9 that all schools receiving money from the government teach DEI and affirm the woke agenda. Both of which contradict the Bible. And any job that isn’t labor requires obedience to the tenets of woke. So it’s technically possible to live as a fundamentalist Christian, and raise your kid as one, but you have to basically drop out of polite society to do it.

The feds have already said that via Title IX they'll strip funding from schools that don't treat transgender kids as their self-identified gender.

So, if you don't want your kid in a mixed-sex locker room, you either have to pull them from P.E., or pull them from the public schools. You're not legally prohibited from doing that, but it's costly. You either take on the burden of home schooling or have to pay tuition to a private school.

The feds have a sneaky way of using money to get their way. They held highway funding hostage to get states to raise their drinking ages. Maybe they'll threaten to withhold medicaid funding unless states adopt laws allowing CPS to treat non-affirming parents as abusers.

For anyone who was wondering about this, the federal government was going to withhold 10% of the highway funding.

Nobody living in Georgia is going to face actual legal obstacles to raising his kids as traditional baptists anytime soon.

Is "can't send your kids to high school because they might be transed or otherwise indoctrinated" not obstacle enough for you?

Sure you can (for now) homeschool if you want, but Amerikaner culture is football stars and homecoming queens, not weirdos reading the bible in their basement.

I’m skeptical of this narrative. Dutch calvinists are still growing demographically under a much more conformist-progressive government than is likely to be in Georgia anytime soon, as an example of schools failing to ‘trans or otherwise indoctrinate’. And we should probably expect more or less the same thing here if the blues get a total victory.

Moreover, the indoctrination seems like it’s mostly blue tribers that are conservative or moderate democrats getting their kids indoctrinated into lunacy, not so much kids from red tribe families.

Maybe so, maybe not -- but regardless of the practical consequences it's ceding territory.

Something is being taken; something concrete which can crystalize the general sense in which this is happening anyways.

People gonna react.

I don’t buy it.

Other topics in the poll:

  • 92% -> 88% for birth control

  • 81% -> 78% for divorce

  • 76% -> 72% for premarital sex

Et cetera. There are 19 questions in total, many of which shifted towards the right, but the only “statistically significant” changes are same-sex relations and…increased support for the death penalty. Are those two really the front lines of the culture war?

I think the poll numbers are consistent with a general lean right, but that any specific issues are going to be green jelly beans. Sway general opinion enough, such as by a bad economy under a Democrat, and a couple of the issues are going to come up as significant.

In fact, look at the breakdown by party. Independent support for same-sex relations actually went up. That’s not what I’d expect from a progressive fringe alienating the center.

A green jelly beans result would be all the colors having a normal distribution centered on 0, with Green an outlier reaching the arbitrary "95% confidence" threshold (and presumably Blue reaching 95% confidence for preventing cancer).

All the results pointing one way but some more than others means it's not P-hacking to produce a result out of noise.

I was thinking normal distribution centered on something nonzero (right-drift). These two claims happened to be significant, but any of the propositions could have been.

But you're right that it's not the xkcd version.

Otoh, a shift on LGBT and crime issues is about what I’d expect from a backlash to woke.

Has the death penalty really been a CW front lately?

I’d find it more plausible if it were asking about police militarization or right to protest or prison reform. Those were probably priced in by last year, too.

Support for the death penalty is just how red tribe normies phrase support for tough on crime IME, so it seems like that question in practice just means ‘should we prioritize punishing crimes’ to a large percentage of respondents.

I think people are using support for the death penalty as a proxy for various "tough on crime" measures.

It’s possible, and there weren’t any other crime options on the survey, so we can’t really check.

But also—what happened in ‘22 to make crime the Current Thing? Are gender politics really going to drive up support for law-and-order conservatism? The biggest BLM talking points should definitely have shown up in the 2021 data.

These results do support a general, minor, rightwards slide. Crediting that to “woke excesses” is what I find a little sketchy.

But also—what happened in ‘22 to make crime the Current Thing? Are gender politics really going to drive up support for law-and-order conservatism? The biggest BLM talking points should definitely have shown up in the 2021 data.

My understanding (as someone who doesn’t live in the States, but has friends who do and other friends who keep track of local city news there) is that crime has continued to get significantly worse even after the pandemic. As such, I am not surprised in the slightest that there’s movement towards a more law-and-order position in America.

I wanted to check the numbers, but almost everything stops at 2020 or 2021. Even the ones that say 2023, presumably for SEO reasons...it's infuriating.

There's a slew of articles going around about how the murder rate has supposedly tanked this year. But they were all released around the same time, so I bet they're quoting the same report. Not very reassuring.

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