“For the children.”

This week the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) was one of the organizations that felt compelled to remove all mentions of the existence of LGBT individuals lest they have their federal funding stripped. Per recent reporting:

“NCMEC’s website hosts numerous reports on the state of various child endangerment issues, including data about abduction, sex trafficking, and online enticement…at least three documents on its “NCMEC Data” page — including a report on missing children with suicidal tendencies, a report on male victims of child sex trafficking, and an overall data analysis of children missing from care — have been removed since the page’s last archived date of January 24th. Archived copies of all three reports included mentions of LGBTQ+ and particularly transgender children.”

I’ve lost count of the many, many ways our country’s conservative wing pretends very loudly that they care about the welfare of children while demonstrating through their actions that children are a vague concept to them, unworthy of genuine consideration. For the most toxic of Republicans — specifically, the ones who keep getting installed to elected office or who spend their days spouting propaganda into a news camera — children are useful levers to pull in pursuit of power, or accessories to their own fragile egos, or both.

If they cared about children they would build an infrastructure that supported their health and education instead of constantly grousing that a percentage of them are being offered free meals in schools. They would stop unsheathing their butchers’ knives every time the acronyms SNAP and CHIP crossed their desks. They would show any real motivation to prevent the next bloody massacre of elementary students instead of whining about their misinterpretation of the second amendment or putting forth plans that coincidentally involve boosting the bottom lines of their golfing buddies at Armalite. There are many other examples I could offer here but as I said: I’ve lost count.

This week the cult of Donald Trump has created a series of hostage situations, including this one aimed at a resource to prevent the exploitation of all American children. Not to put too fine a point on it, but all this demonstrates to me is that these monsters are happy to put even the children they view as worthy of protection in harm’s way if it ensures LGBT kids are harmed as well. The part they have refused to speak aloud, because they have not been cornered often enough and harangued until they admit it, is that there are plenty of children who they prefer to be hurt or killed. That in fact there are plenty of children whose deaths they actively facilitate and celebrate with zeal.