Latest News: Trans Has Become the Leading Sin



Years ago on this blog I made up what I call the "Sin Leader Board." The "Leader Board", as many readers know, is used in golf events to list those golfers who are ahead. I thought of the "Sin Leader Board" as a metaphor for the way Christian leaders, especially conservative ones, exploit the fictitious idea of sin to build support for their particular churches and pastor celebrities. Whatever "sin" seems most egregious, most outside contemporary thinking at any particular moment in history, is moved up on the "Sin Leader Board" and becomes the sin that brings in more money than former sins that now are ignored. 

Around 1918 a group was able to blame bars and consumption of alcohol as the cause of all societal problems at the time. Prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933. Husbands who drank at taverns after work ruined families. Men who missed work were automatically men who drank alcohol. Taverns were evil places and a few were physically attacked. Lots of churches, including the one I grew up in, considered alcohol sin number one. The entire Methodist denomination was anti-alcohol. The Christian crusaders made beer rise to the top of the Sin Leader Board.

Other sins came and went but after WWII Communism was preached against and "In God We Trust" was added to our currency. Interracial marriage took its turn. During Vietnam War sin was anti-war protesting.

There were others but when gay people began asserting their rights for equality, gay went straight to the top of the Sin Leader Board. In the 1980's I told another local politician there had always been gay people and his anti-gay passion was just a way to promote himself. "No." he told me, "There were not gay people in our history. Now their numbers are growing and this needs to stop." 

Gay has slipped on the Sin Leader Board and it's been replaced with trans. A new attack ad against Texas U.S. Senate Candidate, Democrat James Talarico, shows a little girl who then turns into him. He is accused of being a trans male. Note he is not accused of being gay--that sin is passe. 

Will this strategy frighten enough voters to keep Talarico from winning the Texas Senate Seat? It could but could also put in motion trans rights that will show up in the coming years. Political stuff works that way.

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