The Great American Flaw
There is a lie at the center of America's founding. The lie is the value gap. It is the belief that certain people matter more than others.
The founders of the United States declared "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." And that "Governments are instituted among men to secure these rights."
The U.S. Constitution enshrined many rights. Well, rights for some. Slavery was also enshrined in the Constitution from the beginning, so it was also a document of unfreedoms and disclaimers. And there are others who were not protected by the document.
U.S. Constitutional rights initially protected only white, property-owning men. Women, enslaved people, Native Americans, and non-white individuals were excluded as well as non-property owners. This harm and the attitudes behind it have reverberated all the way to our current day and culture.
Chattel slavery played an important part in the lives of many of the founding fathers of this nation. They had to justify to themselves why these enslaved persons were exempt from the ideals they were proclaiming. They justified it by saying that these people were not fully human, and if they weren't human beings then no crime was being committed. What they didn't realize is White supremacy not only causes hell for people of color but it literally is deforming and disfiguring to the character of all the people who embrace it.
This belief that some people matter more than others shaped America and continues to exist in our habits, our culture, our social & political & economic arrangements. The disadvantages forced on groups of people means that had less opportunities to build wealth for themselves which they could pass down to their generations.
We've seen people be denied rights for their place of birth, their race, their skin color, the national origin of their ancestors, for their gender, for the way they dress, for their sexual orientation and gender identity, for their religion, for the language they speak, for their mental or physical disabilities. We have a long history of saying not everyone is created equal and nor are they worthy of the rights that others get.
It's been a long, sometimes violent, struggle waged over decades and decades to get us to the point that, at least in theory, U.S. constitutional rights protect citizens and all persons physically present within the United States. This includes lawful residents, foreign visitors, and undocumented immigrants. Protections such as due process, equal protection, and the Bill of Rights apply to everyone within the country. However, we still have more work to do as there are groups who continue to have numerous rights withheld from them and there are many efforts to role back rights for some people (but seemingly never is there an effort to role back rights for white, Christian, cishet, men, they always seem to be the ones leading these efforts because they benefit from the lie that they matter more).
One way we see this lie, this value gap, continue in America is through patriarchy and heteronormativity. These concepts require people adhere to a set of predetermined roles. They want men to have certain roles and privileges and women to fulfill other roles.
Another value gap we see building in the United States is that of Christian nationalism which is meant to give prominence or dominance to Christian views in political, cultural, and social life. Of course, this is only meant for certain Christian views, not reflective of the variety that actually exists. And those who push for this link it with patriarchy and heteronormativity.
These systems pose a threat to queer people because queerness is a threat to these systems of control because we don't fit anywhere in those structures if we live as our authentic selves. Queer identities are expansive and stretch far beyond the constraints of patriarchy, heteronormativity, and Christian nationalism. These systems are brittle and anything which falls outside of their narrow standards has the potential to destabilize and break them, therefore queerness remains one of their big targets.
So many people who support and value patriarchy, heteronormativity, and Christian nationalism hate transgender people, even though most of them have never met a trans person. What has a trans person ever done to them? It's because gender identity is one of the oldest established structures for controlling people, and the concept of someone being transgender is problematic to them because it's messing with a power structure which benefits them.
There is a long history of queer people being discriminated against. While being trans is a new concept for many people, those same people have been familiar with gay people for a long time and have actively discriminated against them. Yet no matter the laws, rights, culture, and other ways in which homosexuality was and is condemned, it survives. Same is true of trans people.
This concept that some people matter more because of certain intrinsic characteristics tends to make people into enemies as they seek to preserve their privileges against others fighting to be included.
Yet the concept is powerful "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," and continues to inspire many to have this nation live up to its ideals.
We are not enemies. We are all sacred.
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded in America and reflects American culture and beliefs.
Unfortunately this meant it swallowed the lie that some people matter more than others, and the people who mattered most in the American culture became those who mattered most within the Church. This is why people of Black African ancestry were denied the priesthood and temple blessings and many stories were fabricated to explain and justify those bans.
With its practice of plural marriage, the Church and its members were once viewed as a sexual minority and heavily oppressed. Yet with its embrace of patriarchy and heteronormativity as Divine principles, the church discriminates against other sexual & gender minorities both in its theology and in its influence as it sought to have its views be dominant in political, cultural, and social life.
While the LDS Church has scriptures which teach lofty ideals about all are equal to and loved by God, similar to the beautiful concepts of the U.S. Constitution, it has had a hard time embracing and implementing this truth for all people. Yet those truths, those ideals, inspire many to want the institution to do better.
