Should we prioritise the LGBTQI community when disaster strikes?

Are homosexuals and transgendered people more at risk from natural disasters than the rest of the population? I dare say there is a robust tranche of right-of-centre opinion which holds that they are indeed more at risk and that by and large this is a very good thing. Natural disasters are sometimes called ‘acts of God’ and those of a deeply conservative disposition may be inclined to see them as a punishment from the Almighty for grave transgressions of a sexual or gender nature. It is God doing what God does best – a spot of appropriate smiting.

The rest of us might enquire why, if this is so, God allows perfectly decent straight people to be killed alongside the supposed transgressors in natural disasters – and the only answer forthcoming seems to be that His righteous vengeance is not always pinpoint in its accuracy and nor should we expect it to be so. Either that or He is intent on exacting retribution upon both the deviants and those who tolerate deviants within their midst. I have to say I find this argument unconvincing and, as it is advanced by only a small percentage of people, some of whom may have large stocks of weedkiller in their basements, I shall let it lie.

The question has arisen as a consequence of the behaviour of the American Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) following a number of problematic hurricanes. Like almost all federal agencies in the USA, Fema is greatly distrusted by those who are further to the right than a fish knife, as James Thurber once put it. It seems that the agency – which was set up by Jimmy Carter, by the way – has spent an awful lot of its funding providing homes for illegal migrants.