Sol told those you know, I think that as a Latino, a fist
and astride white male, I'm obviously qualified to talk in behalf of this American
Christian who happens to be a black trans man. So let's do it,
guys. This segment is called trans Man finds his Faith in Activism. This
was published by you a USA today dot com links in the description please check
it out. And yeah, it's going to talk about about this transperson who
has been attacked by a Christian institution. We will be talking about that later
on, but let me talk about my personal opinion in this segment, because
you know, I always talk about how religion harms society. That's kind of
my thing, and here we have a wonderful example about this people being discriminated
against just because because of who they are, and apparently this seems to go
against silly and outdated religious ideas. So people get their future destroyed when religious
institution shouldnt discriminate against them, and they don't let them keep studying or pursuing
a career on their own in future. That's why, that's why I find
it so ironic that religious schools are fighting for their right to discriminate because they
believe that discriminating people is part of their religious beliefs, which is disgusting for
me. I mean, I find it. I always say whenever I come
here, I say, usay, you scare me, because whenever I learn
something that new about the USA, I'm like, what the heck, how
is that possible? Learning about this, I learned that religious institutions get legal
exemptions against antidiscrimination laws just because they are religions, just because discriminating is part
of their thing. And I mean, that scares me. That's that's weird,
that's awful. I don't know, Tim, what do you think about
this? Yeah? I mean this was a pretty interesting article about a black
trainsman who's been applying to Christian educational institutions and battling them on whether or not
he should be allowed in or not. And so, something only briefly mentioned
in the article, which I think is pretty central to the issue, is
that LGBTQ people are not a protected class in America and definitely should be in
my opinion, in the opinion of many others. For example, you cannot
tell a couple you won't bake a wedding cake for them because they're black,
you would face legal repercussions in the Supreme Court would have to decide against you.
Because protection for racial minorities is encoded in law. You can't have a
business that doesn't feature ada compliance in the structure, such as wheelchair ramps or
handicapped parking, because physical physically disabled people are protected class. This is the
distinction that the religious hide behind when they would discriminate against LGBTQ people legally,
and unfortunately they can until a law is passed adding LGBTQ people to the lists
of protected classes in the US against which you can't discriminate. Even a religious
institution can't say they don't want to admit a person based on their age,
sex, ethnicity. Their right to discriminate doesn't go that far, but only
legally allowed to discriminate against homosexuals and transsexual people. And that's a big part
of the problem. You know. First, let me say that my heart
broke for Zane when I read this article. It definitely deserves better than you
receive. I am glad you get managed to get out of the restrictive version
of Pentecostalism which they were raised. I was raised in a particular restrictive sect
of Pentecostalism myself. You know, even without the whole biggest bigotry casting its
ugly fingers on every aspect of this story, it is repulsive. It's a
highlights a real problem where for over four billion dollars a year it goes to
religious institutions. Now, as you mentioned, Title nine does bar certain discriminations,
but not for these I know the Biden administration's attempting to rectify that,
but you know what, they're facing an uphill battle on the court, and
right now the court's gone ape shit crazy the wrong direction. Now, having
said that, to read about these people and how they've been treated, you
know, if people want to endorse and spew hateful ideologies, they can do
that, unfortunately, but you should. You had to do it with their
own money, not our now. Unfortunately, though, in a pattern that
we see time and again with victims of abuse, Zane has clung to his
abuse or God. Even more, religion ingrains you with guilt, fear,
and self loathing. So why not accept the abuse and just keep coming back
from more? The truth is it's better to rip the bandage off and you
don't need to squint at the Bible and from one hundred feet away and pat
your head and rub your belly. It's better just to put away childest things,
the false God and be free. Now. I do hope he finds
his way out of religion entirely. And this is one of my major concerns
with more liberal interpretations of idea of Christianity. I feel oftentimes it just gives
a layer of legitimacy to a really horrible thing, because you know, there's
a lot of people that don't want to discriminate, but you know, they
just kind of go with the flow, and this type of thing is kind
of like, yeah, well, what can we do about it? You
know, God, God will take care of it in the end, And
well, yeah, not at all. Yeah, you know, I really
left this article like with mixed thoughts and emotions. You know, on one
hand, you know, any school organization in the United States that is allowed
to practice victory on the grounds of religion and still get federal funding should not
get federal funding. I think that that should be life, point blank period.
Like if you regardless contested, it shouldn't like right, like, you're
not allowing students to come into your particular facility because they're not this right,
you know, and and and for that like okay, cool, Like it
should be that the court would say like, all right, cool, bigott,
go bigot into you can't bigot no more. But we ain't gonna give
you money so that you can big at your biggotness. You dig bigott.
So that's my problem with that, you know so and and and actuality,
I see that that is no difference in principle. When Jerry Folwell's Victories University
was threatening to actually have their federal funding hold because they would not allow black
students to actually be accepted into their schools in the nineteen seventies, they were
told specifically, like, listen, you will not get federal aid funding if
you will not allow students who happen to be not white into your school.
Now, I personally am like wrestling with why in the flying flimited fleurb would
you want to go to a school where administration speaches things with the eight in
the first place? You know, that makes no sense to me, It
doesn't. Well, that's what a lot of people were saying about the Colorado
baker with the gay couple. Why would you want a cake made by him?
Anyway? Which is which is. It seems like a legitimate point,
but at the same time it kind of distracts from the idea that people shouldn't
be allowed to do this. You think about every time the US government has
had to step in and say, hey, you legally can't discriminate against these
people anymore. It's it's now become them. Like you can't imagine a school
now saying black people can't enter because of our religious police. Right, you
can't. You can't imagine a church saying we won't marry an interracial company.
Right. You can't imagine that happening anymore, because it got encoded into law.
And this is this is one of the last kind of bastions they have
of their of their hate and their bigotry that they hold on to is the
LGBTQ people. It's it's it's gay people now more than ever, it's becoming
trans people. Is that they're allowed to discriminate, and they feel like they
should be allowed to discriminate against these people because it's not encoded into law.
And I mean that's our government. Our governments from time to time and say
no, you can't, and I mean, but like, but but that's
the issue that we are seeing specifically here that the government is actually saying,
no, they can't, because the religion says that they can't. Their God,
their belief et cetera, et cetera, is saying that you are an
abomination trans person, you are an abomination queer person. Therefore, they are
allowed to discriminate against you because we cannot infringe on their particular rights when it
comes to their religious beliefs. Which another crazy thing about it is is that
we are having a problem specifically in the United States, where we are constantly
blurring the lines between between church and state, between religion and governments specifically,
and therefore, like this, this is when like a lot of these particular
arguments are becoming mood. So if you're going to tell a person, well,
you know, we're going to go ahead and give this to you even
though you're religious organization, and we really shouldn't because you know, Congress show
make no law against religion, and we are not going to be able to
step you know, the whole establishment class thing right then, But then at
the same time allow them to continuously operate, give them federal money to actually
still be able to exclude people based on their sexual preference. And or their
gender identification. And it's insane to me. But you know, but as
an aside, it's it's it's really insane that LGBTQ, I help people would
still want to attend religious schools when historically religion has been so has had such
animal stories. But at the same time, yeah, go ahead, go
yes, let's debate, let's let's talk about you know, to me,
the first thing that comes up is the fact that kind of alluded what I
talked talked about alluded to earlier is the fact that it's you. They they're
taught. You know, we we've all all of us, most of us
come religious background. You know, we're we're hardwired into that guilt. That
guilt is part of it. So just because they don't necessarily agree with me
or think that I'm acceptable, well, you know, for a god that
thinks I deserve to burn in hell, anyway, what do I deserve?
So maybe I just deserve to be treated like a piece of shit. And
I think that that's unfortunately a reality in all of these situations. It's like,
you know, I, you know, okay, there, I disagree
with what they say, but at the end of the day, you know,
I'm a bad person anyway, so you know, just for a thousand
other reasons, maybe not the one that they think, but I deserve it
anyway. So God's got it all figured out, you know. And unfortunately
that doesn't fix anything. That just allows this abuse. And to me,
one of the simplest ways to resolve this because let's go ahead and get federal
funding out of all religious schools period. Let's just not put a single time
you don't want to have your religious school, you want to have something religious,
have at it, knock yourself out, you pay for it. You
know. I'd love to see Yeah, I'd love to see federal money go
into the ACA and we could go in there and see some nice things that
the funds paid for. But you know what, No, that's for religious
organizations. We know that won't happen. They'd be lining up in droves protesting
that. But just lock the other way because well we're religious. Yeah,
I wanted to say that. Yeah, I agree that religious institutions shouldn't get
money from the state. Well done here. They are all private, so
they never get unless there is some strange way where they can, but they
are they are forced to not to discriminate in here amazing my third word,
country is better than the USA even in that. Okay, But I wanted
to talk about the first thing that you mentioned, what religious religions tell to
people. How can trans people still be religious if the religions hate them?
And there is something that I think was team who said earlier that and this
is not very clear, so it can be interpreted in different ways. And
I have I personally have met LGBTQ class priests who have their own LGBTQ plass
churches. For me, they are just cherry picking some parts of the Bible,
and it's very dishonest in a way. But at the same time,
I see that they try to see Jesus as this figure of love and they
try to ignore everything else from the Bible. They say things like no,
no, no, Jesus said love and everything else was added by people who
didn't agree with Jesus back at the time. Once again, I consider that
dishonest, but I see what they are trying to do. They're trying to
give people a space where they can have their own faith and they can keep
deceiving themselves into believing that God loved them. Is only that all the other
institutions that believe in the same God. For some reason, I hate them,
and I think that is why this guy, this guy in here,
he said that being discriminated by religion made him more religious, which is so
weird, so strange, Like, yeah, this, this giant organization believes
that I should suffer and I should be discriminated. But that just makes me
believe that the person responsible for the system of that organization loves me. So
weird and thank you. Oh my gosh, you know, oh, I
hate to make this about race, but I'm about to make it about race.
So in a sense of what you just mentioned, tale about Zane specifically
saying that because he and his community is being discriminated against, that it has
caused him to, uh, to fall back on his faith even more.
And I know that I'm paraphrasing, but this is the same rhetoric that was
said about the civil rights movement in the nineteen fifty six that people were,
you know, marching, singing, you know, we shall overcome and you
know, keep your eyes on the prize and God's gonna work it out and
whatever else that they came up with on a Tuesday night during a meeting because
God eventually is going to see us through if we just you know that faith
without works is dead thing, and now faith it is a substance of thing,
hope for a thing, and all that other problematic Bible talk. But
you know, But but in a way I'm looking at it is that you
are still so wrapped up in your indoctrination that you are really allowing this whole
talking point to a beat an abusive point to you. Why do I say
that, because you really feel that God is allowing this persecution to make you
a stronger Christian and eventually He gonna see you through, maybe kind of sort
of on a high Holy Day if a pizza happens to be flown up in
the air. Yes, I just made that up, but still you'll get
what I'm saying. But I did want to mention just one thing, and
then I'm gonna ask, you, know, infidel, if you can kind
of chiming on it in some other things that you may want to add in
the article, I was a bit confused. I was a bit confused about
this whole thing. But but one of the things that the article said that
a US District court in Oregon just Silvia's case In January, the judge appointed
President Bill Clinton wrote that the exception appeared to be related to the government government's
objective of accommodating religious exercise, and that Congress did not appear to have discriminatory
intent when it approved the language. So if the exemption literally used to keep
a person out based on their gender identity and or their sexual orientation, how
would that not appear to have a discriminatory intent when you are literally discriminating?
What are you confused, infidel? Because I know I am. What would
you think about that? Well? I think first and foremost is that he's
probably talking about the intent of Congress, And yeah, their intent may have
not been discrimination. But you know, if I take a hammer and hit
you upside the head with it, the fact that the hammer wasn't designed to
hit people upside the head really isn't an excuse for the behavior. And I
think that that's what's been lost sight of now, as you touched on and
I touched on as well, is that and this is back to my concern
about liberal theological philosophies, because they give an excuse, they give a rationale,
And as you said, you know, I'm working with the system,
right now, if I hang out long enough and I met the right trajectory
and that pizza does pop out, I'm there. I'm on it. But
you know, we all know there's no pizza in the sky. And the
reality is is that when I read that story, and you know, I
don't even know where to start hearing him talk about you know, the one
the person on the phone telling him, oh, yes, Sweetie, come
on in and uh go and look, I from the south, And I
know a lot of things get used, baby, and I these things,
they're not necessarily gender specific. I'm no think no if I've ever heard sweetie
use and in a way that didn't at least imply a gender. But what
the guy went through is just absolutely horrendous, talking about getting that call saying
he wasn't allowed even though he was honest and we appreciate your honesty, but
no, still stay away from us and getting out of that uber and sitting
down there in the corner and crying. That's just disgusting on so many levels.
I can only hope that those people in the middle of the road quit
rationalizing these type of things and realize that I'm part of this problem. Whether
I'm the one who's doing it. I may not be the person in the
emissions office, but my tacit approval this type of behavior and Christianity in general
is saying it's okay to behave this way. It's okay to treat people as
second class or forget second class. At this point, I've been watching some
of these preachers online and it's the point where they're saying, Hey, you
should go out and stone gay people, trans people. My kid, I'd
get rid of them, kill him myself. I'm happy when they die.
And when you hear these it's behaviors, all these people in the middle of
the road, I just feel like, hey, come on, do it
to get off the pot. If you want to go join them, let's
be honest and join them. But if you want to be honest about the
situation, let's go ahead and back up and realize that maybe you're on the
wrong bus in the first Yeah, I would hope that like that they would
think that, And I don't know what. I guess we'll just see as
a sign goes on. Uh, if any of the the actors that happened
to be in the decision making spaces like the court, like Congress, et
cetera, et cetera, that they may just see them. Hey, maybe
you're on the wrong side of the history of history on this and and and
you know, I don't necessarily think that they may actually you know, think
that now, but who knows. Maybe maybe they'll have a Damascus road to
moment. Maybe. But I would say to Zane and into other lgbt q
i A activists who happened to really be pushing for inclusive inclusivity when it comes
to going to Christian schools so that they can be ordained and received accolades in
that particular aspect, good luck, and and a bit of advice, especially
to using. I know that you think that you are running on faith,
but you don't need faith, you need a whole team or third Good Marshals.
And with that being said, if you, dear viewer, want to
find out more about other teams or third Good Marshals or anything like that,
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