The bar to being an anti-christ is pretty damn low. There's also no limit to how many exist all one needs is to deny the divinity of Christ. It's just that easy!
There some conflation with the "Man of Sin/Lawlessness" though who is supposed to be a "fierce King" who appears at the end of times and “will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed."
Admittedly the Liberals are not my party of choice but there still is validity for voting for the lesser of two bad options. Until we can address the first past the post system we are beholden to voting more against than for a given regime by reaching a sort of mutual concensus with our neighbours before we hit the polls. That representive voting system needs to happen elsewise we're stuck playing this dumb game.
But it's hard to compare even this party I am not terribly enthusiastic to to the Democrats when there's at least mediocre commitments to a number of decent causes toward reconciliation, reasonable commitment to the Kyoto climate accord targets, stated support of LGBTQIA+ causes and at least a lukewarm support of Palistine mostly expressed through refugee programs and a spineless condemnation of the atrocities and a recognition of two state authorities in the region. There's also a much more robust court culture and a wider swath of people in the party who at least demonstrate a desire for a properly pluralistic, secular society.
It's more useful to veiw the parties based on how they talk within their own parties because it's not a presidential situation. There's less unilateral moves to be made as a PM without party support is a lame horse. While I wish we would see wider endorsement of the NDP it's not traditionally a popular party in the field and there's way more swing between Libs and Conservatives.
The Liberals are trying their best to find a tasty middle ground for the "fiscal Conservative voter" to bite because strategy reasons. They put forward a candidate who is Albertan, Catholic, an outsider to politics with a lot of financial sector ties who pulls quotes from the era of the Quiet revolution and balancing government budgets for the discerning blue voter while the more leftist ones can chew on his ringing of alarm bells of wealth inequality, climate change and the lack of application of morals in the markets. He's been largely silent on 2SLGBTQIA+ issues which while always a little unsettling the previous admin left on a very openly queer friendly stance so while again, not ideal, all that currently is needed at present is just not undoing what's been done and supporting the stuff already in progress.
Is he everything we've dreamed? Not really. But it shows they are trying to build out a solid concensus candidate that a broad range of people can stomach.
Why are you trying to conflate Canadian Liberals and the Democrats? They aren't remotely the same party, the systems of government don't look anything alike and they aren't in cahoots.
And the Canadian Conservatives are fronting a guy who has stated his support of American style "Right to Work" legislation and other Americanizing government initiatives who went into politics immediately from going to school for international affairs against a guy who has spent years as Governor of two National Central Banks and created a number of international contacts across the Commonwealth in the international financial sector that can be leveraged and yet Conservatives are trying to paint themselves as "better for the economy". Pollievre has been utilizing anti gay anti queer dogwhistles in his rhetoric for the past ever as well. Fuck Right to Work bullshit and fuck anybody who wants to roll back civil protections. There's not a lot of places in the world as safe as Canada for queer people to exist so it's not like there's much better places to escape once the fortress falls.
While I don't doubt your stance comes from a history of trauma, policing any kind of identity in this way causes real trauma to others. It causes a pervasive sense of isolation that is antithetical to feeling supported and secure and puts a check on a person's ability to participate in their culture. Your lack of comfort does not mend leveling the playing field of stripping away the comfort of others if it is being expressed peacefully.
Bans also very become a very fuzzy line. Most holidays are based off of religious festivals that are widely participated in by the secular and non-secular alike. Once someone starts making exceptions because a wide number of people like a specific one you start creating an artificial canon where minority cultures are oppressed while a narrative of "dominant culture" is allowed giving certain religious traditions cultural supremacy. For example people inside the Church have been trying to get rid of the multitude of pagan festivals that were rebranded as Christmas for eons. They ended up just rubber stamping it because taking away something beloved doesn't go well. In a modern context you could try and rebrand Christmas to a non-religious holiday... But good luck. It's layers of Christian over Pagan imagery and traditions fused into a gastalt religious melange. Any governing body that has tried to get rid of it before has spectacularly failed and leaving it be would quickly become a symbol to people who come from places with different dominant partially seclarized religious traditions that they remain cultural outsiders who don't have the nessisary concensus to participate in public. It would translate directly into supremacy narratives.
It's healthier for a society by far not to police the range of peaceful human expression and connection. People deserve to see themselves represented and connect with each other without needing to act like undercover spies in hostile territory.
I am less shocked and more resigned. Been tracking the progress of the Republican party over a decade now and watching them throw out euphemism after euphemism as they just aren't needed anymore. What the reaction of shock got us back then was "alarmist" since the Conservative playbook was so layered up in dogwhistles the average person thought it was tinfoil hat fodder.
The base was being groomed to accept this as an outcome and so they were slow boiled. It was that way for the Nazis too. Each terrible move wasn't quick it was the next horrible logical conclusion of their worldview of removing the "useless" aspects of humanity. They started first in government services and then with eugenics in mental health care while dismantling queer infrastructure in cities under the same eugenics line citing them as non-reproductive genetic dead ends. Then it turned to homelessness. Then as their policies created more "useless" classes of people in the form of minorities who could not legally work because of the laws they passed they turned to liquidation of those groups. Each step was followed by a pause to make the rhetoric more callus to build off the basic premise that as an able-bodied, regularly employed, sane, cishet, white, Christian / atheist that your resources were personally being stolen from you to feed the "undeserving".
How far back can you remember Republicans on their soap box about people being undeserving of assistance or support? About people being a waste of resources or campaigning to make those people easier to stigmatize? It shouldn't be surprising after over a decade that they've been dropping the mask.
Honestly a lot of news doesn't actually cover this stuff as it should. Covering trans topics is usually something that causes backlash or requires a high degree of finesse in reporting and explaining so these modern lynchings go largely uncovered by the big mainstreamers except when they think they have a winner that's straightforward enough to report in a short quippy segment.
Who the hell says "transsexuals" anymore except folk who were out in the 90's?
If you would like to read some articles how about Forbes?
NBC?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna125783
Congress? Bonus points they give you the stories of a bunch of the victims.
https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/117016/documents/HMKP-118-JU00-20240321-SD015.pdf
How about a long term view over ten years? Statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/944726/murders-transgender-gender-diverse-people-us/
And these are the murders we know. They are difficult to find because a lot of coverage buries the lead on the trans nature of the victims so we only learn about them being trans after the fact. A lot of newspapers use dead names and pre transition photos and don't mention current names and identities so in some of our communities we only know when someone has died except through word of mouth because when they show up in the paper they aren't recognizable. This is also why articles tend to use the words "at least" or have inconsistent counts per year. New ones are always coming to light as friends and family struggle to get the word out.
You do not see these news articles because your news silo filters them out. There are vigils every year where the names are read out. The circumstances of those vigils are that the main reason for the violence was because of the victims gender identity. You asked for sources. Have at em.
Uhhh... They have kind of absurd political power. The Vatican is essentially the decision making body of something a close to an international political business with a history of teaming up with governments to support initiatives.
Like look at the genocidal regime of residential schools in Canada. While they were a government initiative 2/3 of them were run directly by the Catholic church.
Political power doesn't always mean strictly "interfaces directly with official government" either. Politics is the web of citizen buy in to how the world should be run. The Catholic Church is incredibly influential on citizens many of whom take the directives of the church and translate it into agency in a multitude of ways. It's not a perfect control but it's certainly used to shape the political landscape the world over.