Maybe you grew up long before I did, but my childhood began in the late 70s, and I remember Proposition 8 (2008), Matthew Shepard (1998), satanic panic (1980s a

Maybe you grew up long before I did, but my childhood began in the late 70s, and I remember Proposition 8 (2008), Matthew Shepard (1998), satanic panic (1980s and 90s), and I know people my age and younger that survived conversion therapy "camps". I don't really disagree with the rest of your points, and I can be convinced that churches have gotten incrementally more political since 2008, but I don't think the differences are quite as stark as you say. Churches have been political and cruel to out-groups for a long time. I suspect that some of the perceived difference can be ascribed to experiencing church as a child vs. experiencing it as an adult.