Hate group super upset that Biden thinks everyone should have rights
A Family Research Council Action blog calls Biden ‘dangerous’ for affirming transgender people.
A blog from the legislative affiliate of the Family Research Council, a group designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group from the Southern Poverty Law Center, attacked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for supporting transgender people.
The group’s blog post, published on Friday on the Family Research Council Action website, responded to Biden’s appearance at an ABC News town hall last Thursday. Mieke Haeck, a mother of two girls, said her eight-year-old is transgender. Haeck asked what Biden would do as president to reverse the “dangerous and discriminatory agenda” of the Trump administration, which has rolled back numerous LGBTQ protections.
Biden responded, “I would flat out just change the law,” and said “there should be zero discrimination” against transgender people.
When Biden mentioned Haeck’s daughter, he affirmed her understanding of her gender by saying, “The idea that an eight-year-old child or 10-year-old decides, you know, ‘I want to be transgender. That’s what I think I’d like to be. It would make my life a lot easier.”
Tony Perkins, the president of Family Research Council Action, wrote, “Joe Biden, the man vying to be your next president, thinks eight-year-olds have the capacity to make life-altering decisions to change their gender. And if you — the parent, doctor, or any other adult — try to stop them, it’s ‘discrimination!'”
Perkins focused on transphobic narratives that portray medical steps in transitioning as harmful to the people who transition. Never mind that neither Biden nor Haeck talked about her child’s plan for transitioning. Transitioning includes a wide variety of steps transgender people take, which can be different for each person, including changing one’s gender expression and informing people of accurate pronouns and name changes.
He added at the end of the post that Biden was “dangerous.”
Perkins also focused on the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who currently sits on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. On Thursday, Biden was asked by town hall moderator George Stephanopoulos whether he would support expanding the Supreme Court. Biden said, “I have not been a fan of court-packing” but added that whether he supported it depended on what happened with Barrett’s nomination.
Perkins called it a “shocking moment.”
Despite there being only a few weeks until the election, and with senators testing positive for the virus, Republicans are moving forward with Barrett’s confirmation.
An issue brief on the Family Research Council website is effusive in its praise of Barrett and how it believes she may rule on numerous issues of importance to them, including issues of so-called religious freedom that encourage discrimination against LGBTQ people.
“We need justices like her on the Supreme Court,” the group wrote when it referred to how she may rule on issues of LGBTQ equality, including allowing discrimination against LGBTQ families by adoption groups.
Barrett’s past comments on transgender people’s bathroom access and marriage equality have sided with opponents of LGBTQ equality. She also has connections to Alliance Defending Freedom, which has also been designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Since 2011, Barrett was paid to speak five times to students at the group’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship Program.
When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked her at a confirmation hearing on Tuesday if she was aware of the group’s efforts to recriminalize homosexuality, Barrett claimed she was not aware of them. On the same day, Barrett used the term “sexual preference” when talking about marriage equality, which groups slammed as a signal to her anti-LGBTQ supporters. Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization that advocates for LGBTQ people, tweeted that it was a “dogwhistle.” Barrett later apologized for using those words but did not show an understanding of why LGBTQ people said the term was offensive.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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