Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appearance before the Senate last week was missing just one thing: a tinfoil hat. As a promulgator of deranged and dangerous theories about vaccines, Kennedy is so far out of the mainstream that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) can call him a “charlatan,” and that seems more like a description than an insult.

Even Republican senators are forced to take issue with him, with two senators who are physicians – John Barrasso and Bill Cassidy – offering up their heartfelt “concerns” that Kennedy is on track to kill Americans by restricting access to vaccines that are proven lifesavers. (Of course, that’s been Kennedy’s crusade for years, which didn’t stop either senator from voting to approve his nomination to HHS.)

Related

Donald Trump’s ban on trans research shows that his ultimate goal is eradication

The larger issue is that the Republican Party opposes science. While this is often couched as a “distrust” of science – or in Kennedy’s case, “skepticism” – it is in fact outright hostility to the reality of scientific data. Instead, the right presents an alternate scientific reality, where data doesn’t matter, but conspiracies and ideology do, and which conveniently enough can be used against LGBTQ+ people.

While all the attention last week was on vaccines, Kennedy has long trafficked in anti-trans and anti-gay medical lies. He has said that chemicals in water are turning kids trans. He has argued that HIV isn’t caused by a virus but by popper use among gay men “who were burning the candle at both ends.”

Dive deeper every day

Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

The right has long used pseudoscience to attack LGBTQ+ people. Activist Paul Cameron dressed up his attacks on homosexuality with such gems as a study that claimed that 17% of LGBTQ+ people enjoy consuming human feces. A Florida court once cited his bogus claim that children of gays and lesbians “disproportionately experience emotional disturbance and sexual victimization” as a reason to ban same-sex couples from adopting.

The same kind of fake science is now being used to “prove” that trans people simply do not exist. The argument that there are only two biological sexes ignores the complex science of the brain, but it does conform to the ideological bias of the right. When you have a very prescribed view of the roles of the sexes – men should be strong, women should have babies – anything that contradicts it is easy to view as “unscientific.”

Unfortunately, that plays into people’s vague feelings about trans people in sports.

Of course, the right wants people to think as much because of gender roles. The same line of thinking is used to argue that women’s IQ scores are more likely to be average, whereas men’s show more genius, as Trump’s choice to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics reportedly said.

Republicans have been waging war against science from the White House for decades. It didn’t start with Trump. George W. Bush made climate denialism a key component of his policy because he was an oilman. His White House hired people who promoted the idea that condoms weren’t effective. An entire book was written about how Bush subjugated science to ideology.

The idea that Kennedy is just the end product of dissatisfaction with COVID restrictions is nonsense. The willingness of conservatives to put their faith in nonsensical nostrums is a long-standing issue. (Television preachers have been raking in bucks hawking all kinds of dubious products for years.)

Their problem with science is that it presents facts, and they don’t like the facts. Indeed, they are so opposed to them that the MAGA faithful are willing to risk their lives to make a point.

Our problem is that they are also willing to risk our lives as well, or even destroy them, just to deny reality. The Republican Party today is intent on presenting a vision of America where reality is beside the point. The fake science and lies about real science are a strategy for a vision of America that is straighter, a throwback to the 1950s. You know, that time when polio actually was a threat to public health.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.