Trump proposes statues of 'racist' Antonin Scalia, Billy Graham, Angry Internet says 'throw Putin in there too'
President Donald Trump wants to erect a garden of statues that has made the internet very angry because it involves people like Antonin Scalia and Billy Graham. The president fired at the left-wing in his latest speech at Mount Rushmore, on the brink of America's 244th birthday. Marking the fourth of July celebrations, Trump's Independence Day speech saw him call out the left for vandalizing statues of former American presidents in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality towards the community.
While Trump went on to glorify American Heroes — most of whose statues have been toppled for practicing slavery _- shortly after his speech, the Wall Street Journal's political editor Ben Pershing tweeted "Trump says he will sign an executive order creating a National Garden of American Heroes. Doesn't say where."
Pershing followed it up with another tweet saying: "The White House just sent out the text of the executive order. It creates a task force to recommend how and where to create this new garden. And it specifies the statues that should be in the park (including Antonin Scalia)", attaching a photo of the alleged text manuscript. This has managed to cause a massive uproar on the social media platform, as Scalia is most popularly remembered for using the term "homosexual agenda" in 2003 while calling for the criminalization of homosexuality. And social media was having none of it.
While Graham is celebrated for his illustrious work as a Christian Evangelist, he had often beaten around the bush with anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Speaking on the subject of AIDS to a record-breaking crowd of 44,300 in Cooper Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, in 1993, Graham had remarked: "Is AIDS a judgment of God? I could not be sure, but I think so."
His legacy in the form of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, now spearheaded by his son Franklin Graham, has become a platform for rampant homophobia and support for anti-LGBTQ initiatives. The organization's website sees Franklin Graham claim Satan is behind LGBTQ rights and activism, as there is "no place for compromise" on same-sex marriage. Franklin has also praised Russian leaders who he claimed have "stood steadfastly against the rising homosexual agenda in their country."
Scalia, who passed away in 2016, was an American lawyer, jurist, government official, and academic who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death. Known for his anti-LGBTQ community sentiments, the internet is sprinkled with articles that would take one to some of the most outrageous and horrendous things he had said against gay people in his lifetime.
In his 2003 dissent in Lawrence, Scalia argued "Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”
Scalia had also equated prospective laws banning homosexuality to laws banning murder, child pornography, incest and bestiality in his arguments. His claims involved homosexual couples are just roommates, and he had also gone on to suggest people sexually attracted to their own sex should just try having sex with the opposite sex. And while these arguments might seem from almost two decades ago, the internet remembers all of it.
Soon after Pershing tweeted the photo of the White House's upcoming "garden of statues", others began retweeting the post slamming this distasteful decision made by the president. Mocking the decision, a user tweeted: "Trump wants to erect a statue of Antonin Scalia and Billy Graham. Might as well throw Putin in there too."
Another wrote: "Trump wants to put up a statue of Antonin Scalia, a man who in 2003 used the term 'homosexual agenda' in a dissent where he argued states should be allowed to criminalize homosexuality. I will personally lead the charge to tear this one down if it goes up." A third user chimed in: "I promise to help give money to the GoFundMe of whoever knocks down a f**king Antonin Scalia statue."
"Why in the fuck would you give racist a** Billy graham and overall shitty human being Antonin Scalia a statue? I can name multiple historical figures that deserve statues more than those f**ks," tweeted another user.
Summing it up for everybody heated and slamming the decision, a critic put Scalia on full blast, sharing: "F**k Antonin Scalia. He wasn't a great mind. He didn't just 'call balls and strikes'. He was a judicial activist who hid behind his jurisprudence to marginalize American citizens through his originalist hypocrisy. Antonin Scalia can rot while I piss on his grave."
