Doctrine As A “Guardrail,” NOT A “Weapon.”

As any religious person knows, especially in the American Catholic and broader Christian world, Church/Biblical teaching can be applied in different ways.

In our current American political culture, Church/Biblical teaching from the alt-right is being used to harm and endanger peoples’ lives through politics, especially towards LGBTQIA+ people and their families. This also means a large percentage of these LGBTQIA+ people are also Neurodivergent, such as Autistic. According to Autism Speaks, one of the leading Autism institutes, people with Autism are more than doubly likely to identify as LGBTQ+. In the largest and most current study to date, Autistic people are 3 to 6 times more likely to also be Transgender or Gender Dysphoric. This means harming LGBTQ+ people is most likely harming Autistic people. This proves that people cannot be “pigeonholed” into a box.

As I stated in my most current video, Church/Biblical teaching must be applied as a guardrail for Christian/Catholic living which means someone’s sexuality is a very personal, private, and individual matter. If that person is Catholic or another faith tradition which has strict teachings on sexual ethics, which are separate from someone’s sexual identity, it is still very personal and private just as it would be for anyone else. Church teaching even in the strictest environments can only be applied as a guardrail or a framework for people to live their best by without endangerment to their lives and health.

An all-knowing and loving God would never wish for doctrine to be applied as a weapon to endanger peoples’ lives and well-being. When I see a trad from the Catholic Right, say “I mean no harm,” but he/she actively tries to support secular laws, enforce church canon laws, and all other kinds of actions which endanger the lives of those they hate, like intentionally trying to push minority groups out of the Catholic Church where they were baptized and born, religious trauma and even suicide are the rotten fruits of this hatred. I have seen it first-hand in the neurodiverse community many times. This tells me something; I am not stupid.

According to a Christian researcher, former Democratic candidate for public office, father of six, and good friend of mine named John Woodman, he spells the weaponization of “Christianity” out quite truthfully and transparently.

“Transgender Americans are a tiny percentage of the population. It’s almost always the case for fascists (and fascist-look-alikes) that they choose minorities to blame for any and all of the nation’s woes. Then they focus hatred on those groups of people, while claiming that their hatred is “patriotism,” and denying that it’s hatred at all. For Mussolini (who preached the greatness of the “Aryan race” long before Hitler did), it was Slavs (particularly Croats and Slovenes), Black people, Jews, and Asians. For Hitler, it was Slavs, Jews, and gay people. For Franco in Fascist Spain, it was Protestants, gay people, Freemasons, Romanies, Jews, and ethnic minorities who were Catalan, Basque, and so forth. For Trump and DeSantis, it’s gay people, transgender people, anyone who’s not a “conservative Christian,” Black people, Chinese people, immigrants, and refugees at our southern border.

Whether in its strongest forms or in its weakest, this evil almost always masquerades as “Christian” and “patriotic,” although it is neither. It is anti-Christian, a counterfeit political religion in which we are to be saved not by Christ, but by a political strongman who will “purify” the nation by repressing minorities, often including the weakest among us. And in the case of America in particular, it is unpatriotic and unamerican. Why? Because it directly denies our highest national ideals. No longer is America to be a place of liberty and justice for all. Now it is to be a place where only the “right people” set the policy. Everyone else is to be put in “their place.”

I will close with this. People like John Woodman, millions of other Catholics/Christians, and myself who left the Religious Right are not stupid or ignorant. Many of us know history and have “the number” of the Religious Right/Catholic Right although we awakened to their fascist ideology at different times. I refuse to play their games which is why I am now as far left as a Catholic can go. Catholic Social Teaching, the Gospel, and Jesus Himself are my guiding lights, not the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and Ron Desantis.

Doctrine as a “Guardrail,” NOT a “Weapon.”