See the previous articles in this series:
Part 1 – U.S. in danger over extreme, leftist reactions to Trump presidency
Part 2 – 68 more reasons to be grateful for President Trump
Part 3 – Trump has saved many nations from evils of Paris Climate Accord
Part 4 – The evidence: Trump fails on gay/trans/religious liberty issues
August 7, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — This is the final installment of a five-part series on President Donald Trump’s record to date on the life and family issues. Today’s article continues the analysis of Trump’s record on the “LGBT…” issues that was begun in Part 4.
Outspoken social conservatives in the Trump administration
It has been encouraging to see how many pro-life, pro-family Christian individuals Trump has appointed to senior positions in his administration. Undoubtedly, some of them have been attempting to educate the president on the dangers of “LGBT…” behavior and agendas to individuals and to the nation. These senior officials, plus the outside Christian advisers that the president has regularly consulted, have certainly played a part in his nomination and appointment decisions.
Vice President Mike Pence, however, although he has been a consistently strong pro-life advocate, on the “LGBT…” issues, is is not considered a reliable conservative ally. Pence claims strong Christian convictions and has publicly stated he is personally against same-sex “marriage” and other special homosexual and transgender rights.
In practice, Pence's commitment to his Christian beliefs has depended on perceived political advantage or disadvantage. Pence has dramatically caved in response to political pressure from “LGBT…” activists. He stunned social conservatives with his praise for President Trump's decision to extend a pro-LGBTQ Obama executive order and included gay activist language in his statement that was seen as a rebuke to those who defend traditional beliefs.
But beyond Pence, there are others who have likely been more reliable advocates for the defense of family and the importance of traditional moral principles for a socially healthy and strong nation and military. Dependable social conservatives in the Trump adminstration are Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, Secretary of Health and Human Service Tom Price, Secretary of Housing and Human Development Ben Carson and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.
Just fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer are also solid social conservatives. Both Preibus and Spicer valiantly but unsuccesfully fought against the president's decision to hire Anthony Scaramucci for White House communications director. Priebus left soon after this debate had been decided and Spicer quit the White House when the hiring of the extreme pro-abortion, pro-gay Scaramucci was finalized. Priebus and Spicer were vindicated when Scaramucci was fired within days, even before his official start date of August 15, after his vulgar rant against Priebus and Stephen Bannon became public in an interview with New Yorker magazine.
Liberal New York City culture influence on Trump
The president comes from a New York City culture background of many years. New York, especially among the elites and wealthy, is one of the most sexually liberal and anti-faith regions of the United States. Given the social circles within which Trump moved for decades it is a wonder that he has appointed so many social conservatives, and enacted the social conservative policies that he has.
Even the Catholic Church in New York, especially under Cardinal Dolan, has been shamefully liberal on the homosexual/transgender issues.
Trump’s relationship with numerous conservative Catholic and non-Catholic Christians that he initiated in June 2016 seems to have had a notable impact on him. He has been exposed to prayer, convincing arguments and solid data that he has likely never encountered before.
Most influential liberals are known to associate almost entirely with those who share only their own limited liberal views. Hence, the millions of Americans who live conservative lifestyles and hold to traditional moral principles can seem extreme to New York, Hollywood, news media, and other liberals simply because of the liberals' years of closed cultural associations.
Trump’s performance at the pre-election New York archdiocese Al Smith dinner was another turning point. At the dinner, he was confronted with a Catholic Cardinal constantly fawning over extreme liberal Hilary Clinton and a crowd of mostly faithless, wealthy New York dignitaries and liberal Democrats, many of whom were previous, frequent acquaintances of Trump.
There was little understanding or genuine support in that room for any of the moral teachings of authentic Christianity. In fact, many of the prominent persons at the dinner were known, hostile opponents of Catholic moral teachings.
And yet Trump was the only one to address the issue of anti-Catholic bias, the need to defend religious liberty and to create a culture of life and he notably referred to the importance of God. In contrast, Hilary Clinton’s speech smoothly catered to her New York elites audience, which she well identified with.
The pressure on Trump to conform to the liberal Democrat New York culture, given who was there and Trump knowing their extreme views, was intense that night. And that culture likely explains a big part of the reason that Trump has not yet acted as he should have so far on the “LGBT…” and religious freedom issues.
Influence of Ivanka and others in Trump administration
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and husband Jared Kushner are playing an increasingly large and negative role in Trump’s decision-making. The New York power couple have been credited in the media for sinking the initially floated Executive Order on religious liberty. The Kushers have a history of supporting homosexual activism, including co-hosting a fundraiser for a leading pro-homosexual “marriage” group in 2011.
Ivanka and Jared have been strongly identified Democrats and Jared is reported to have ongoing financial and personal dealings with globalist manipulator George Soros and gay activist billionaire Peter Thiel.
Ivanka had also been trying to convince her father to keep Obama’s commitment of the U.S. to the Paris Climate Agreement.
Included in the Paris agreement is a call (top of p.2) for countries to “promote … gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity,” among other things. These phrases are common to U.N. documents as euphemisms for the promotion of homosexuality and abortion.
Ivanka has also been secretly meeting with leaders of “the progressive women’s movement” and privately met with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. She is attempting to steer the Trump presidency toward a liberal feminist direction that could alienate Trump’s conservative political base.
Kushners do not seem to be hard leftist ideologues
The Kushers are an attractive and usually upbeat couple – not at all the personality of the usual left-wing, gay activist and climate ideologues. The parents of three young children have endured some harsh reactions from gay and abortion activists that have likely been shocking to them:
-
Ivanka, her husband and three children were harassed on a plane by a gay activist loudly yelling “your father is ruining the country. Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private.” The man and his “husband” had to be removed from the plane just before it left the gate.
-
After failing to convince Trump on the Paris accord, Ivanka said she would turn her attention to supporting “my LGBT friends,” but she then received harsh condemnations from them for not taking a stronger stance against the policies of her father and his cabinet members.
-
Hundreds of LGBT activists held a raucous “dance protest” outside Ivanka and Jared’s Washington D.C. home on April 3 to protest her father’s policies on climate change, calling Ivanka “complicit” for not standing “up to the bigotry and hate of her father.”
-
During the meeting that Ivanka herself arranged with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, Ivanka was lied to throughout the meeting about what the organization does with the massive funding it receives from government.
-
Various media reported that Cecile Richards later publicly criticized Ivanka for her “deafening” silence on the healthcare bill, especially now that Ivanka is a senior White House official with an office in the West Wing.
It seems by now that Ivanka should be learning how extreme, dishonest and unreasonably demanding the various groups that oppose her father really are. The only way that she can satisfy them would be to publicly attack many of her father’s policies and call him a bigot and hater – despite knowing that he is neither.
Ivanka and Jared may simply be, like Ivanka’s father, products of New York’s very closed, ultra-liberal culture and need to consider also associating with persons with different views as the President has done. Ivanka and Jared may have very little awareness of the arguments and real lives of the millions of American social and religious conservatives. Like many New York Democrat liberals, they probably have an unjust, stereotypical view of conservatives simply because they have never associated with any of them to a significant degree.
My suggestion is that we should all pray for Ivanka and Jared and many conservative leaders should reach out and attempt to befriend them. It seems well worth a try.
The negative influence of Rex Tillerson on government social policy
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is not at all a friend of conservative Americans as LifeSite revealed in a thorough, must-read December 15 report. We wrote,
“Family Research Council President Tony Perkins slammed Rex Tillerson, President-elect Trump’s choice for Secretary of State, for his record at ExxonMobil of promoting homosexuality and abortion — and his role in opening up the Boy Scouts of America to homosexuals.”
Ivanka and Rex worked together to try to convince the president to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate accord and to greatly tone down the initial draft of a religious liberty Executive Order. While unsuccessful on the first, they totally succeeded on the second.
In a June statement sent to Newsweek recognizing Gay Pride month, Tillerson, in line with previous Obama policy, stated, “In recognition of LGBTI Month, the Department of State affirms its solidarity with the human rights defenders and civil society organizations working around the world to uphold the fundamental freedoms of LGBTI [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex] persons to live with dignity and freedom.” Ivanka also made a statement recognizing Gay Pride month while the President did the opposite and broke with the Obama-established tradition.
One has to wonder what negative influence Tillerson, who lives just a few doors down from Ivanka and Jared’s house, is having on the younger couple and of course also on the President.
Tillerson is likely more resistant to openness about reconsidering his strong pro-LGBT views. It is also well worth praying for him and attempting to befriend him. Still, I suspect, given his invested past pro-“LBGT…” actions, his high level international corporate status during which he managed many thousands of people, and his age, he will be more entrenched in his mistaken views that have probably come from having succumbed to pro-“LGBT…” and climate change seductive lobbying and propaganda.
The left has found corporate business tycoons to be generally easy marks for infiltration with their culture change agents and policies since these business leaders are usually totally uneducated on issues not directly related to their businesses. Their very demanding daily business schedules leave them no time to acquire objective, in-depth understanding of the controversial social and political issues.
The leftist seductions are skillfully presented to appeal to the businessmen's sense of fair play and willingness to help victims of whatever false, contrived scenario's the seducers present to them.
Harmful divisions among Christians and especially Catholics
Not at all helping the situation today are the massive and growing divisions among Christians on “LGBT…” issues. Many have even rejected centuries of traditional Biblical teaching.
Worst of all, we have lost the powerful international influence of the Vatican to urge government leaders to understand more about the numerous dangers to individuals and nations of a collapse of traditional moral standards.
Under Pope Francis, it seems that much immorality can now be justified, but under John Paul II and Benedict the millennia of Christian moral teachings were extremely well taught and defended for the good of all – Christians and non-Christians alike. Natural law was the language to reach and teach the world. Under the current Francis papacy, Natural law has disappeared and it almost seems as though there never was a St. Pope John Paul II who wrote the greatest encyclicals in history on Church moral teachings.
Still, Trump seems to realize that Pope Francis is not on his side or on the side of the many faithful Catholics, Evangelicals and other believing Christians who support him. During his visit to the Vatican, Trump ignored the smooth attempt by Francis and Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to convince him of his supposed moral obligation to keep the United States as a signer to the Paris Climate Agreement.
If President Trump pays any heed to the Vatican on homosexual and transgender issues, let’s pray he heeds the unbroken 2,000 years of tradition on Christian sexual morality annunciated by the still living Pope Benedict XVI rather than the confusion stemming from his successor.