Lately, we’ve been fed a lot of images of Donald Trump, his spiritual advisor Paula White, and various evangelicals gathering to pray for something or other… oh, yeah, re-election! It would be kind of comical, except that all that pseudo spirituality is backed by a very real hate agenda that threatens to disrupt our lives and freedoms.

Last year, the Trump administration finalized a regulation granting “statutory conscience rights” to health care providers who want to cite their religious beliefs and moral convictions as they turn down LGBTQ people, refuse to perform gender dysphoria treatments, and also reject abortion, vaccinations, and so on. That sounded more like lack of conscience rights—and in November, it was thrown out by a judge as violating various civil rights and medical acts, not to mention posing a threat to public health. Adding insult to injury, this blessing to bigotry was announced as having been designed to protect these religious workers from discrimination! Could the irony be any richer?

Donald Trump and Paula White.

And there’s more...

In his continual attempt to court evangelical approval, (IM)POTUS desperately wants adoption agencies to be able to cite religion and discriminate against queer folks, thereby reversing Obama-era protections, and bible thumping Mike Pence publicly extolled this policy as something to be proud of.

And not long ago, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey doubled down on the idea that Christians shouldn’t have to serve gays. He said businesses should have the right to turn down gays for jobs, services, and housing, but he bizarrely added that he’s “against discrimination”! The only thing worse than someone who aims to legalize bigotry is one who wants to paint himself as freedom loving in the process.

Anyway, here are eight reasons why this phobic agenda is pure bull that will surely get their purveyors straight into hell.

1. It is inhumane.

In the case of adoption agencies, it’s inhumane to loving and willing queer parents, and it’s also inhumane to children who are desperate to be scooped up into a home. There’s no logical, scientific way to justify it.

2. Our government is not only supposed to be based on separation of church and state, but our country routinely boasts equal rights for all.

Ironically, gays have long been accused of demanding “special rights” when all we want is the same stuff accorded to the hets—you know, equality. And now it’s the religious extremists who are demanding the special right to discriminate and refuse people service. Hilarious.

3. These particular acts of exclusion are based on reading the Bible with extremely care-free abandon.

In other words, if you want to really use the Bible as your guide, you’d have to also not serve adulterers (like guess who?), divorcees (ditto), and people who wear polyester blends and eat shellfish (I’m just sayin’). But the “religious” haven’t really read the good book—or they know full well that most of it is hyperbole that’s not to be taken literally—so they just parrot the “gays are sinners” shtick that enables them to browbeat already oppressed people. While doing so, they ignore every other word.

4. How would they even know if a customer is gay?

Will they do a quick glance at the person’s Facebook page? Check out their sense of style? Quiz them on Lizzo’s career? Or maybe just refuse service to anyone who seems gay? “Hey, before I put in your burger order: What’s the difference between chartreuse and mint green?”

5. By being so supposedly religious, these deniers are ignoring the fact that Christianity traditionally says to “condemn the sin, but love the sinner.”

That’s pretty sick to begin with—homosexuality is far from a sin—but at the very least, it advocates not shunning the person whose behavior you might disapprove of. Turning people away for any reason is a very non-Christian thing to do, especially if it’s for much-needed medical service. In fact, refusing entry to the outsider is the opposite of Christian. The whole religion was based on “no room at the inn,” remember?

6. Pope Francis says that Trump’s craving for a border wall is “not Christian."

Also, he says that Trump’s treatment of refugees calls to mind the evil King Herod, who tried to kill baby Jesus and massacred male infants. Furthermore, the Pope insists that gay people deserve empathy and love. He has repeatedly stated that gays (like refugees) should not be excluded from society—they need to be welcomed, not shunned. But the evangelicals don’t want to hear all that because it goes against the bigotry that gives them a swollen sense of god-given power. So Trump—who puts on a big show about his religiosity but probably couldn’t even quote a word of the Bible except for Sodom and Gomorrah—knows more than the Pope about how gay people should be treated? Please. He’s just pandering to haters who have no more of a pipeline to God than I can get Beyoncé on the phone.

7. Religion is a choice, but sexuality isn’t.

Instead of turning me away for something I can’t (and don’t want to) change, why not alter your religious views to be more accepting? If you don’t like queerness, then fine, don’t do it. But don’t refuse me my dinner, an apartment, or an operation because of mine. I walked away from your religion, so why should it still affect my life? What happened to my religious freedom to not be oppressed by something I have no belief in?

8. There’s something extremely pathetic about businesspeople bragging about how they’re going to turn customers away.

Any halfway smart entrepreneur who makes wedding cakes would have been thrilled when same-sex marriage passed—it meant more business, not to mention more of a chance to spread love all around. “We are refusing lots of income” became the cry of self-defeating condescension, not to mention just plain dumb economics. But fine, turn us away. We’ll get our cake elsewhere—and we’ll eat it, too—as you struggle to pay your rent. And I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year.

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Come See About The Supremes in Newark

On a more fabulous note: A museum exhibit about the Supreme Court justices wouldn’t be all that glamorous—and some of it would be homophobic—but an exhibit dedicated to The Supremes, the 1960s girl group fronted by Diana Ross, is right up my alley, so I headed to Newark to see it with lots of arm gestures.

The exhibit, Legends of Motown: Celebrating the Supremes, at the Grammy Museum Experience at the Prudential Center, is a shimmery, superb look at the act that broke down racial and gender barriers as they synchronized their way to the top. The clothes on display are from the personal collection of Mary Wilson from The Supremes, and they range from a solid black department store schmatte they bought for the act when they were the Primettes to encrusted 1967 ensembles worn at the Cocoanut Grove to a “Touch” gown, designed for Mary based on the 1971 album of the same name (by which point Diana had gone solo and Jean Terrell was the lead singer).

A timeline and commentary is also included, along with some of the album covers and posters I bought as a kid with a lip synch mirror. My world is empty without The Supremes’ style, and I’m thrilled that it’s just a PATH train away.

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NYC Nightlife Update: A New Drag Bar!

From girl groups to gurl groupings: I was a regular at the relocated Boots and Saddle drag bar in an old theater space on 7th Avenue South, appreciating its divey décor and sometimes broken down, but always game drag queens. But the place felt doomed and sure enough, it shuttered over a year ago. Well, it’s finally been replaced by Playhouse, courtesy of the Pieces and Hardware Bar owners, Eric Einstein and Justin Buchanan and a lot of shellac.

The redesign makes the joint slicker and nicer, with more of an Hells Kitchen-in-the Village feel, and the stage is better positioned at the end of the bar rather than on the side, where a ratty wooden platform used to precariously stand. It’s great to see drag stars like Jacklynn Hyde, Izzy Uncut, and Pixie Aventura doing their thing, and it’s been fun to spot audience members from Milk to Dua Lipa there, though the DJ must not have HBO (he was playing Michael Jackson one recent night). Whatever the case, Playhouse is shaping up as a great place to find someone to play house with.

Nearby, at the long-running Julius bar, it’s SRO when Kyle Supley promotes and DJs the “After Dark: A Disco-very” party on the first Saturday of every month. The bash’s name is a reference to After Dark, which flourished in the 1970s as a glossy, gay-oriented camp and glamour magazine.

Contributing to the retro revelry at the most recent After Dark, Jeff Chiola’s video compilation blared out with ancient snippets of Pink Lady, the Osmonds, Cher, Elton John, and, yes, Diana Ross, in all their glittery finery. The ‘70s were every bit as depressing as now, but I must say we came up with much better escapism to deal with it.

Hello, Dolly! Back on Broadway?

Pearl Bailey as Dolly, 1967.

Speaking of the '70s coming back, playwright Jeremy O. Harris has an idea. The openly gay Harris—a critics’ darling whose current hit, Slave Play, deals with the sexual implications of racial stereotypes—just tweeted something interesting: “What classic musical should I adapt to make the Broadway world completely implode? Should I do a radical take on Hello, Dolly! that goes behind the scenes of the 1976 all-black revival that only lasted on Broadway for 45 performances?”

First, some background: Pearl Bailey originally did Dolly! as a Broadway replacement (with an all-black cast, including Cab Calloway) in 1967 and it was a sensation; the madly ad-libbing Pearl won a Tony for it. The revival, starring Bailey—in 1975, not ‘76—was not quite as dazzling. But I like the idea of Harris reinterpreting the production and what accompanied it, sort of the way Shuffle Along revisited a 1921 black musical in 2015.

It would certainly be a different take than the entertaining but straightforward one starring Bette Midler in 2017. But my suggestion is that he instead take on The Sound of Music, the whitest show ever produced. Only he could make it radical. It might even bring me closer to God!