LGBT Republicans shocked that Trump is so anti-LGBT
Ostrich’s don’t actually bury their heads in the sand. But maybe LGBT conservatives do. Recently, there have been several articles with titles like “Gay Republicans are shocked that the Trump Administration is anti-LGBT” (LGBTQNation.com) and “Trump’s Gay Backers No Longer See Him as the Great Straight Hope (The Daily Beast).
As to being “shocked”, it brings to mind the famous line from Casablanca, when Captain Renault says to Rick, “I’m shocked…shocked to find that gambling is going on in there.”
“During his run for office, Donald Trump positioned himself as a champion of gay rights, someone who would bring the Republican Party into modernity on an increasingly settled civil rights cause,” says Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein, writing in TheDailyBeast.com. “But well into his first year in the White House, those who hoped for the best have been disappointed and those who assumed the worst say their fears are realized.”
Another Daily Beast column during the campaign gave five reasons why “a Trump/Pence administration would be a disaster for LGBT people.”
Here are the reasons, in brief:
- The Supreme Court
- Mike Pence
- Transgender people
- The rest of the world
- Discrimination in the name of religion
All five of those reasons have already come about. Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, and he was confirmed. Mike Pence, always an anti-LGBT public official, has increasing sway over Trump. Transgender people have become the scapegoats of the administration. The administration has turned its back on LGBT rights in the rest of the world. And the president signed an Executive Order to put religious rights above all others.
For coverage of the Trump administration’s anti-LGBT efforts, visit:
DOJ directive makes LGBT+ rights subordinate to religious protections
Trump administration response to transgender protections
How Trump advances his anti-LGBT+ agenda
Chris Barron, a longtime conservative gay-rights activist, was interviewed by The Daily Beast. He said, “I think, personally, the president has met my expectations…. My concern has always been what happens at the department and agency levels. And I definitely have concerns with what is going on at Department of Justice. The attorney general [Jeff Sessions] has a very different position on LGBT issues than the president does. But his job is to carry forward the president’s agenda and not push his own… I’m certainly concerned he is [pushing his own].”
In other words, Trump isn’t to blame; it’s the guys he appointed to positions who are actually anti-LGBT.
“I never thought that Donald Trump was an anti-gay homophobe,” Jimmy LaSalvia told The Daily Beast. “I certainly didn’t think that when I met him back in 2011. But we’ve all learned a lot about who he really is since then. With his political pandering and posturing to endear himself to the intolerant wing of the GOP over the last few years, it doesn’t surprise me that this administration will go down as the most anti-LGBT in history.”
“He will be the most gay-friendly Republican nominee for president ever,” Gregory T. Angelo, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, insisted to The New York Times in April 2016.
The Daily Beast continued, “While Trump may have turned to traditional Republicans, and some prominent cultural conservatives, to staff his administration, he also continued to rely on family members and more socially moderate New York finance types, which gave gay rights advocates renewed hope. But that faction of the Trump administration—most visibly represented by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—has turned out to wield little influence.
“This was never more clear than when Trump announced his transgender service ban in late July (on the anniversary of Harry S. Truman’s desegregation of the military, no less). According to one senior White House official, Ivanka and Jared had previously determined that their ‘political capital be spent elsewhere,’ as their advice on LGBT issues had been routinely overruled in the administration even before the military trans ban.”
“’As the Russia investigation heats up and as his failures at basic governing pile up, I think gays will more and more become scapegoats. It’s a pretty old, standard playbook for political bullies,’ said Richard Socarides, who served as White House special assistant and senior adviser to President Clinton. ‘Anyone who thought Trump would go easy on the gays was clearly wrong. The question now is not whether he will set us back, but how far’,” concluded The Daily Beast article.
Copyright The Gayly – October 14, 2017 @ 4:55 p.m. CDT.