Republican Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles wants to “Make America Great Again”.So he triggered a political firestorm.“Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month!” he tweeted late yesterday.A few hours later, Ogles deleted the post. But the intended uproar in the midst of US Pride Month was already in full swing.Creed. Colour. Gender.All are increasingly targets of America’s polarising culture wars.And now a cause of civil war within the Republican Party itself.Fellow Republican Congressman Mike Lawler lashed out at the MAGA kingpin, calling him a “f***ing idiot”.Lawler is running for re-election in New York. And the Republican Party’s divisive tactics are not reflecting well in the polls.“Homosexuality exists. In America,” Lawler posted to social media this morning. “In fact Andy, you have family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and constituents who are gay and lesbian. It doesn’t make them less than or somehow unworthy of being an American. What an absolutely idiotic statement to make.”But gender and sexuality are now core issues for the Trump administration.And on Monday, Secretary of War Peter Hegseth suffered a setback.As another attempted deal to end the Iran war collapsed, the US Federal Appeals Court ruled his flagship policy of expelling serving transgender troops to be unconstitutional. But it did allow him to refuse to hire more.“See you at SCOTUS,” Hegseth retorted to the news.He’s determined to take the fight to the Supreme Court.MAGA banner bearerCongressman Ogles is no stranger to the US culture wars.In March, Ogles flew in the face of US Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion by insisting that “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie”.He’s labelled Democrat New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani a “little Muhammad” and called for the practising Muslim to be “deported”.The avid MAGA adherent has urged the Republican Party to move to amend the US Constitution to allow President Trump to run for a third term. He’s also called for the President’s face to be added to Mount Rushmore.“The legacy of Mount Rushmore cannot remain frozen in stone; it must evolve to reflect the full arc of American history, including its most recent and transformative chapter,” Ogles posted. But he may now have lost a few supportive Republican votes.Former New York Republican George Santos took the MAGA hardliner to task.“As much as I support the nuclear family and how fundamental it is for life, I never thought I’d hear a person I consider a friend say there is no place for me in this country simply because of who I chose to love,” Santos posted this morning in response to the furore.“I never once pushed my lifestyle onto anyone and have always voted and advocated for conservative principles.”Balancing act“You know, I’ve got to say I’m libertarian by nature,” Republican kingpin Senator Ted Cruz told US media overnight (though he opposes same sex marriage). “I think the behaviour of consenting adults is their business.”But what is happening in other people’s bedrooms, bathrooms, schoolrooms and churches are hot political points of contention in the United States.June is widely recognised in the United States as Pride Month. But Ogles’ home state, Tennessee, has now declared it Nuclear Family Month.The Pride tradition dates back to a June 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn gay nightspot in New York, which is regarded as a turning point for the LGBTQ+ movement.Now, Tennessee’s state government wants the month to promote “one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children”.Tennessee has some controversial visions of “family”, however. In 2022, legislators introduced a bill proposing the removal of a minimum marriageable age alongside a gay ban. Both were rejected only after significant public uproar.Now, Representative Ogles’ outspoken manner risks grating against some of the Trump administration’s inner circle.Key Trump insider and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the United States’ first openly gay (and same-sex married) Cabinet member. He has not yet responded to the uproar.Other prominent gay Trump Republicans include tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Special Envoy Richard Grenell.But the MAGA movement is increasingly a source of its own discontent.Tech billionaire Elon Musk last month conceded he would not be as politically active as he is if not for his disappointment at his estranged daughter Vivian’s gender transition. Musk has 14 known children with at least four different mothers. So he’s not gone so far as to advocate for “nuclear family” values.Wounded prideSecretary of War Pete Hegseth’s “war against woke” is going about as well as his war on Iran.President Trump signed an executive order in January last year, insisting that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service”.It had been Mr Hegseth’s hottest topic as a former cable news commentator.The policy stated gender divergence undermined “a soldier’s commitment to an honourable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life”.“For the sake of our Nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty,” it concluded.But two of three US appeals court judges disagree.So he can’t continue firing them.“The Hegseth Policy is both arbitrary and based upon animus, and for those reasons the Policy violates Plaintiff-Appellees’ constitutional right to equal protection of the law,” US Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins ruled on Monday.“(He) has not contested that the Plaintiff-Appellees who are currently serving (and who have collectively earned more than 80 commendations) have served honourably and pose no threat to national security, even though they happen to be transgender and have suffered from gender dysphoria.”But the Trump administration now regards gender to be a matter of national security.“Extremist transgender ideology” is one of the nation’s most pressing threats, according to the White House’s new counterterrorism strategy. “We see a threat, we will respond to it, and we will crush it, whether it is the cartels, the jihadists, or violent left-wing extremists like antifa and like the transgender killers, the non-binary, the left-wing radicals who killed my friend Charlie Kirk, we will take them on, head on,” Mr Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka declared last month.“Our national counterterrorism activities will prioritise the rapid identification and neutralisation of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist such as antifa.”Jamie Seidel is a freelance writerRead related topics:Donald Trump