You know what’s wrong in the United States and why crime rates have gone up? If you listen to a certain person in a certain political party, then the answer you get is simple: need more public executions. But this is from the same person who says that the southern border has been “abolished.” What does it mean to abolish a border?

We don’t know.

What we do know is that every week almost someone slated for the death penalty is found to be innocent, even as others are killed by the state. Further, what’s up with Texas? The ten commandments in the classrooms isn’t enough to fix the murder problem in the state? Banning all those books (more than Florida, it’s just not covered as much because of course Texas is banning books) didn’t help fix the problem?

But where goes Trump (damn, I said it), there goes the Republican party. Remember in 2019 when the Republicans were leading getting rid of the death penalty? Yes, that was real. And that’s from the Wall Street Journal—hardly a bastion of liberal ideas. Where’s the Republican party now?

I can’t recognize them anymore.

Is anti-LGBTQ+ a Christian thing? No. Absolutely not. That’s cherry-picking the Bible—unless we think that it’s fine to use women as nothing more than collateral (as in offer her up to be… whatever…by an angry mob). Also, there are many Christian churches in the Pacific Northwest and even on the East Coast which allow and even encourage the participation of LGTBQ+ membership. The fact is that Jesus wouldn’t be hanging out with Joel Osteen. Period. He was hanging out with the prostitutes.

If you think your religion allows you to hate gay people, you’re wrong. What’s really going on is that you are *deciding* to hate gay people, and using your religion to justify this fact. It’s not a Christian thing.

It’s a you thing.

And when it comes to it, you get to decide who you hate, and who you don’t. Don’t blame the baby Jesus because you decided to hate the gays.

And, for the record, there are LGBTQ+ people in *every* community. If you don’t know them, that’s probably because they don’t trust you to be an ally and think you’re dangerous.

Texas Anti-Trans Law: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/10/texas-trans-kids-abortion-lgbtq-gender-ideology/

Labor Force Impact on Same-Sex Couples: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/lgbtq-people-face-higher-unemployment-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-survey-finds-n1205296

Sexual Orientation Facts: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/sexual_orientation.html

Midterms are just around the corner. Do you know who you’re voting for? While we don’t tell you who to vote for (Beto — vote for Beto if you live in Texas), we do tell you why we support the people we do. No, it’s not a personality contest. And if you’ve learned anything about us so far, you should know that we don’t beat any single party drum religiously. Of late, we’ve been on one side of the aisle because when it comes to d*#%$ing around with the democracy and constitution that we swore to protect, one party is doing this in spades.

If that’s not enough, maybe some good old-fashioned self-interest will interest you. When it comes to policy, it also happens that (right now) one single party pushes a platform that helps society and the people in it, while the other gives tax breaks to billionaires and steals from its constituents. And there’s more…so much more. Learn a bit about policy in this podcast episode called the Midterm Hustle.