A message to blood-thirsty, death-loving, human rights-hating conservatives: Stop using the gays to justify the war in Iran. Stop acting like we should be grateful or something.
It’s long been a talking point of the anti-gay right that LGBTQ+ people have nothing to complain about when it comes to their rights in the United States because LGBTQ+ people in other countries have it much worse.
The most high-profile bearer of this nonsense is Donald Trump himself.
Trump recently sat down with YouTuber and boxer Jake Paul for a “Between Two Ferns” style interview.
As one might expect, the subject of Iran came up. You know, the place where the United States incinerated a school full of girls because Pete Hegseth has a murder fetish.
Paul expressed bewilderment that there wasn’t more feminist support for the war.
“I was a bit shocked that so many activists in America didn’t like it,” Paul says. “Meanwhile, they were like, ‘Oh, well, we support women. We want women to have all these rights.’ Meanwhile, you’re liberating the women of Iran and then they have an issue with it. I thought it was very confusing.”
The U.S. is liberating the women of Iran, huh? Apparently step one was to kill their daughters. Did I mention that Paul gets hit in the head for a living?
American women not getting murdered as much (debatable) and how lucky they are led Trump to think of the gays and how good gays have it here as opposed to those poor gays in Iran.
“We support gays,” says Trump, “but they throw gays off the buildings.”
I’m sorry, who is this WE he’s talking about? Because Trump does not “support gays.” The ultra right-wing justices that Trump chose for the Supreme Court have both the inclination and the ability to strip LGBTQ+ people of every right we’ve fought for since Stonewall.
Not to mention Trump’s obsession with hurting trans people. If you are anti-trans, you can’t call yourself a friend of the gays. If you’re coming for transgender people, you’re coming for the whole community (and for any members of the community who don’t think trans people belong, you can unkindly fuck off).
Trump also supports ultra right-wing candidates for Congress and state offices who write and pass anti-LGBTQ+ legislation to make our lives as difficult as possible. That is not supporting gays.
Trump then strays to some other thought and says something about how great the war is going, how much support he has and his amazing poll numbers (his poll numbers are actually very, very bad). The man is delusional.
They also talked about the future of young people. A future that Trump makes worse by the day. Paul asks Trump if he has advice for young people about how to succeed.
“The hot thing right now is AI. If you know the AI thing, you’re going to get an unbelievable crazy job at ridiculous numbers, numbers you never thought of,” he says. “So if you like computers and all of that, it’s not a bad thing.”
Got that, kids? Yeah, you won’t have, like, clean water or air you can breathe, but if you can get in on that AI thing, you’re golden.
Trump and his administration love AI more than your weird aunt on Facebook. It is, quite frankly, embarrassing. Like the AI video of Trump flying an airplane over the country and literally shitting on people. Or the AI video of RFK Jr. in a wrestling ring beating the shit out of a guy in what looks like a Twinkie costume (not going to link to them. You can find them if you want). Truly the most cringe administration ever.
Trump also says of Iran, “We have to wipe out the evil. They’re evil people.”
In case it wasn’t clear, Trump is very racist. Granted he’s not the first racist president, but he is the only one in my lifetime that has been so open about it.
Trump is also incapable of seeing (or caring about) the “evil” that he and his administration are responsible for. I do not actually believe evil exists, but cruelty and violence sure do. His approach to immigration hurts a lot of people. Gays included.
“Earlier this year, immigration authorities sought to deport two gay Iranian men who are in a relationship back to Iran, where same-sex relationships are illegal and can be punishable by death under Iranian law,” The Advocate reports. “The couple fled Iran after being arrested by morality police for alleged ‘homosexual conduct,’ according to their attorney. They eventually reached the United States seeking asylum, but remained detained for more than a year while facing removal proceedings that could have sent them back to Iran.”
But hey, at least we’re not the ones throwing them “off the buildings.”