Anti-Semitism, racism, and Islamophobia are terrible things that we have to deal with, and we all have to speak up and refuse at all times. But the reality is that as a proud Jewish gay man living in Washington, D.C. today, I fear more for Donald “felony” Trump, his Nazi co-president Elon Musk, his own Joseph Goebbels and Stephen Miller. And I run away from the demonstrations of law college, like Christie Noem of Homeland Security and Marco Rubio of the State Department. Take care, I say it’s legal.
We live in a world where Trump can tolerate all sorts of outrageous behavior. He dined with white nationalists, and when the Charlottesville riots broke out, his initial comments said there were great people on both sides. Today, Trump sits with Qatar terrorists, accepts planes as bribes and negotiates with terrorists like Hamas. This is the world created by Donald Trump. That’s what I fear most. It’s a world where Donald Trump has made him accept that racists, homophobic, sexist, anti-Semites and Islamophobia will spew hatred in public squares.
Last year I published it Memoirsand I wrote about being a first generation American. My parents came here to escape the Nazis – father from Germany and mother from Austria. My father joined the American army and returned to fight the Germans. His parents were gased at Auschwitz. I realized from them and their friends what anti-Semitism was. But I grew up in the Jewish community in New York City. As I wrote in my book, I never felt it myself until I was 13 when I was traveling the Midwest.
I knew that when I was 12, even if I didn’t understand that about being gay. I was able to hide it until I was 34 years old. Then it came out in DC. But it’s near the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and it’s been very careful with you. You’ve been told to not pay your insurance company for a blood test, so God forbids it, people think you’re gay or it’s even worse if you test positive. There was rampant discrimination and fear about HIV/AIDS at the time. I’m gay so I know I’ve lost at least two jobs, but fortunately neither of them affected my career in the long run. I became a gay activist, fought for my community, and things got better. Before I came out, I worked for Rep. Bella Abuzug (DN.Y.), the sponsor of the first Equality Act.
Today, Donald Trump literally threatens the lives of trans people through his actions. As a city that is a very comfortable place for the LGBTQ community, countries around the world have told citizens to be vigilant when they come here, while celebrating DC’s WorldPride. The US is on the watch list for unsafe travel due to Trump’s actions.
When Donald Trump was first elected, his racism, homophobia, sexism and Islamophobia quickly came to the forefront. It had a negative impact on our country’s culture. It actually changed culture, and it, and he got worse over time. Today, Trump and his Maga minions are truly frightening. Again, trans people are afraid, and anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are rampaging in our country.
Trump tries to blame some foreign students for that, but the reality is that he is doing. He and his Magacult. They are something I fear and are not graduate students in Colombia who support Palestinians. Israel’s Netanyahu government is making the situation worse. Yes, Hamas must be defeated to promote genocide against Israeli Jews. But the Israeli government is starving millions of Palestinians in Gaza, not Hamas, and no one is helping. It simply creates more anti-Semitism. Trump travels back and forth between Netanyahu’s support and then creates more anti-Semitism, saying he wants to drive all the Palestinians out of his Gaza home to build a resort. Trump is guilty and is not a Colombian student speaking for Palestinian families.
I don’t know where this ends. But my mind was recently killed on the streets of DC by terrorists who were given permission to act fundamentally by what Trump is doing in the world. What he did is mean and he should go to prison for the rest of his life. Everyone has to speak up every day and say that anti-Semitism is unacceptable, and it has to be stopped. I don’t want to see Germany recreated here in 1939. But that’s what Trump and his Magacult are doing. They threaten everyone they oppose and seek vengeance for the suspect. They are literally trying to destroy our democracy. By what they are doing, they grant unspoken permission to act to the terrorists who have ended the lives of that beautiful young Jewish couple in DC. If the president can act like a criminal, why can’t he?
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
