What I find most interesting about the reaction to some of Trump anti-islamic and incredibly racist comments is that they have exposed a potential double standard in both the public reaction and media representation of issues of discrimination in the US. Many of the GOP candidates have used their campaigns to make strongly homophobic statements and support for anti-LGBT policies. Consider:
- Marco Rubio, considered a strong contender for the presidency has promised to reverse the executive order banning LGBT discrimination by federal contractors (the only LGBT discrimination protection avaliable at the federal level) and to appoint Justices to the supreme court who will reverse the Marriage decision.
- Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have both actively supported business owners successfully sued under state discrimiantion protections for refusing services to LGBT persons claiming it to represent a breach of religious freedom. Ted Cruz even referred to LGBT discrimination protections with the ugly loaded phrase "Liberal Fascism"
- Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal appeared at a conference alongside a pastor who claimed that parents whose children marry a person of the same sex should block the entrance to the venue covered in cow manure and made several other bigoted and cruel statements about LGBT Americans
- Mike Huckabee made a speech openly vilifying Transgendered Amercians claiming if Transgendered protections were avaliable when he was a teenager he would have used it to watch girls shower at his school
- Voters in Huston overturned a non-discrimination ordiance after opponents ran adverts suggesting falsely the ordiance would permit men to enter womens bathrooms and thus demonising transgendered persons. Texas Governor Greg Abbott put a message on Twitter to this affect.
The question must be asked - why are reverently anti-LGBT positions, statement and rhetoric considered more acceptable then Trump racists ones. 300,000 people in the UK sighed a petition asking parliament to considered barring Donald Trump from entering the country, yet Marco Rubio is not only not called out for his homophobic positions, he's actually being considered as a serious candidate whom many in the GOP establishment see as the best man to challenge Trump. This is an appalling double standard. Where are the world leaders condemning the transphobic statements of Greg Abbott or Mike Huckabee, or the Homophobic position of Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. Why didn't other candidates and GOP party members condemn Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal for attending that conference the way former vice president Dick Cheney and even Marco Rubio himself have Trumps bar Muslims from entering the US comment.
What's most worrying about this disparity is that the Anti-gay candidates actually have the power to do significant harm to LGBTs, potentially to the point of reversing most of the gains made in the last 8 years, where as nearly all of Trumps rhetoric is just that. Rhetoric. Trump's policies such as building a wall along the southern border, barring Muslims from attaining visas or increasing surveillance on mosques are beyond the powers of the executive and would most likely not receive congressional support. Even if a potential Trump administration did attempt to issue executive orders to put any of those policies into affect they would most likely be successfully challenged in court. Since the anti-LGBT policies of Marco Rubio involve negative actions such as rescinding an existing executive order and possibly vetoing any LGBT civil rights legislation that may be passed by congress, there would be relatively few avenues of appeal for persons aggrieved by those decision. Currently Title 21 of the US Code, which contains the provisions of Civil Rights Act, does not extend protections to people based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and 33 states have no equivalent protections. However it does provide protection on the basis of race and religion. All this silence does it further legitimise the false narrative of "Bigots are victims" being used by candidates such as Cruz and Rubio to delegitimise LGBT civil and human Rights and to subsequently demonise and attack LGBT people.
What's most ironic still, is that Donald Trump seems to be the most LGBT friendly of the GOP candidates (I use the term friendly in a relatively sense). He has said he will not support overturning obergefell v. hodges and has since 2000
supported amending Title 21 to include Sexual Orientation as a protected attribute.
I should add that none of my statement should be considered an endorsement of Donald Trump by myself or an attempt to excuse his action. His rhetoric has the potential to do real harm as it may amount to an incitement to violence or hatred of Muslim Americans and racial minorities. The fact that two at two Trump rallies there have been incidents of a protestor being beaten up by supporters chanting "USA" and ironically "All Lives Matter" attests to this fact. I would simply like to know why media outlets, high ranking GOP party officials and politicians in other countries see the Homophobic position that could easily be enacted if one of the candidates I have mentioned were elected is acceptable, while xenophobic rhetoric that can only be rhetoric should lead to the position of an entire country consider banning a potential world leader from crossing it's borders.
Did I hear right that Trump got disqualified for his anti-religious views on Muslims?
Technically speaking Donald Trump can't be disqualified from running for president merely because he's made xenophobic statements. The criteria that determine someone's eligibility for president are those set out in Section 1 of Article II of the US Constitution:
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.