LGBT People Aren't Exempt from Trump's Bigotry

As I listen to tonight's Republican "debate" - having my finger nails pulled out with pliers might be less painful - the lack of substance and any hint of plans and policies is mind boggling.  The anti-immigrant rhetoric is over the top and Trump's claim that he will force Mexico to pay for a wall along the Mexico -USA border is beyond ridiculous.  There is NO legal basis on which Mexico can be forced to pay for such a wall.  Moreover, Trump insulted Telemundo, the largest Hispanic network in America.  Yes, Trump's outrageous statements play well with the white supremacist in the GOP base and garner wingnut applause, but they are disingenuous and dishonest, and deliberately so.   But Trump's bigotry is widespread and as Michelangelo Signorile points out in a column in Huffington Post, the LGBT community is among Trump's targets.  Here  are excerpts:

There's been a theme in some of the media, and certainly among some gay Republicans -- as I focused on a few weeks ago -- that implies Donald Trump isn't so bad on equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, or is at least better than most of the other GOP candidates. It's absolutely false -- he's as extreme as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and will do nothing for LGBT rights -- and it's time to disabuse the media and everyone else of this notion once and for all.

Trump very publicly, often in large media forums, offers up vague hopes about attaining justice (on a whole range of issues, with his "make America great again" mantra), without explaining how he'll do that. He has in the distant past said that he supports non-discrimination laws that protect gay people, and even said last year, when asked on Meet the Press, that gay workers shouldn't be fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation -- though didn't offer support for laws barring such discrimination, and certainly didn't say he'd pressure Congress to pass such a law.

Trump very publicly, often in large media forums, offers up vague hopes about attaining justice (on a whole range of issues, with his "make America great again" mantra), without explaining how he'll do that. He has in the distant past said that he supports non-discrimination laws that protect gay people, and even said last year, when asked on Meet the Press, that gay workers shouldn't be fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation -- though didn't offer support for laws barring such discrimination, and certainly didn't say he'd pressure Congress to pass such a law.

[H]e [Trump] is definitely speaking forcefully on his anti-gay positions to evangelicals on their media platforms, in their language, using the dog whistle on LGBT rights even if he's using the fog horn on other issues. Trump is much smarter than many give him credit for. By speaking with the fog horn on many issues it gives the impression that he places low priority on the issues with which he's using the dog whistle. In fact, he's calibrated what to speak softly on and what to take big, no matter that the positions may be equally extreme.

In his Nevada victory speech, he said, "I love the evangelicals!" Only looking at Christian evangelical media forums, however, would you understand why they have reason to love him back:

Last week in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, Trump called the Supreme Court's Obergefell marriage equality ruling "shocking" and told evangelicals to "trust me" on the issue, telegraphing that he would get the marriage equality ruling overturned.

On Fox News Sunday, Trump in fact said he'd consider appointing judges who would overturn the Obergefell ruling, taking up a position that Marco Rubio had announced weeks earlier.

Trump came out in support of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which anti-gay Republicans introduced in Congress last year. It would allow government entities, non-profit organizations that receive government funds and businesses contracted with the federal government to discriminate against gays. Basically, it would allow for the kind of exemption on a whole v

While Trump had initially criticized Kim Davis in the mainstream media for not doing her job, he later quietly backtracked in talking to evangelical Christian-focused media outlets and when pressed in an interview with me at the Values Voter Summit last fall, he expressed support for Davis and her position.

Trump has attacked Chief Justice John Roberts -- who voted against LGBT rights consistently -- as insufficiently conservative, and recently promised in a Christian Broadcasting Network town hall with Pat Robertson at Robertson's Regent University that he would put far right extremists on the court who would get Roe v. Wade "unpassed."

As we've seen, Trump is a master of manipulation (of media and of constituencies) who learned that on the gay issue he could give mixed signals, implying "tolerance" of LGBT rights while on the campaign trail but then speaking to anti-gay bigots within their forums and telling them exactly what they want to hear. 

[H]e knows evangelicals, who've suffered defeats, will accept someone who more quietly makes promises -- as long as he's a winner. And they're intent on making him a winner and holding him to those promises.

Meanwhile, so far, the GOP "debate" has been a study in childish insults and sound bites devoid of any substantive plans or proposals.  The contrast between the GOP circus and the Democrat "town hall meetings" are enormous.  The Democrats focus on policies, proposals, and solutions.  The GOP, it's all about demagoguery and self-prostitution to extremists.  As for LGBT voters, anyone supporting a Republican candidate is in my view akin to a Jew in 1930's Germany supporting the Nazi party.