The Moral Bankruptcy Of "LGBT For Trump"

Radio host and columnist Michelangelo Signorile and I hold a similar contempt for LGBT individuals who remain Republicans and support the GOP even as it works to legalize discrimination against LGBT citizens and to strip away our civil and constitutional rights.  All too frequently these folks are wealthy and/or live in very LGBT friendly states and face none of the harsh realities that most of us face.  Indeed, in my view, they are akin to Jews who would join the Nazi Party if they thought it would have a financial benefit.  Among those in this category is the utterly clueless Caitlyn Jenner whose wealth and fame largely insulate her from the realities of LGBT life.  Michelangelo has a piece at Huffington Post that looks at the moral bankruptcy of these LGBT for the GOP and/or Trump.  Here are highlights:

There are some notable LGBT Republicans who are not supporting Donald Trump, probably for the same reasons that many other Republicans aren’t supporting a man viewed not only as unfit for the job and unstable, but who breaks from GOP orthodoxy on several key issues. Ken Mehlman, for example, former George W. Bush campaign manager and one-time Republican National Committee chair, is part of the “Never Trump” crowd.

But then there’s billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who is a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention next week. And Caitlyn Jenner, who had a phone call with Trump, and is now all in. And, perhaps most hypocritically, Chris Barron, the former GOProud leader who now has founded an LGBT for Trump campaign. Barron agrees with the Log Cabin Republican leader Gregory T. Angelo that Trump is “one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency,” impressed that he “mentions” the LGBT community often.

I’ve refuted this ridiculous, dangerous notion several times. . . . But let’s give them this for a minute and presuppose that Trump is pro-gay. It means that gay GOPers are behaving exactly the way they’ve accused gay Democrats of behaving for years: as single-issue voters.

But putting that aside too, gay Republicans supporting Trump truly are doing so based on his supposed support of LGBT rights even as he has broken with the GOP on bedrock issues that these same gay GOPers have championed, . . . So LGBT GOPers supporting Trump are the very single-issue voters they’ve decried all these years.

And of course, even on that single issue, no one could say Trump is better than Hillary Clinton — who supports marriage equality while Trump does not. So, people like Barron defend support for Trump by claiming Trump would be better on national security — yes, even with his reckless stubby fingers on the buttons — protecting gays against terrorism . . . . even as he recently met with and made a pact with hundreds of anti-LGBT leaders.

Well, surprise, surprise: the proposed platform hammered out yesterday is the most anti-LGBT platform we’ve seen. It strongly reaffirms opposition to marriage equality and gay adoption. It calls for regulating where transgender people can go to the restroom, supporting draconian laws like HB2 in North Carolina, and it supports the First Amendment Defense Act, which anti-LGBT GOPers in Congress are debating and allows for discriminatory religious exemptions among businesses, organizations and taxpayer funded nonprofits.

The truth is, Trump agrees that Obergefell should be overturned — promised to appoint judges who would do so — supports the First Amendment Defense Act and believes that states should be able to pass transgender bathroom bills even if he disagrees with them personally. So, if indeed Trump distanced himself from the platform on LGBT rights it was because he agreed with the religious conservatives who wrote it and let them do what they wanted.

That’s because, on LGBT issues, Trump needs anti-LGBT groups to win the election and will surely promote their agenda in return for the votes. And beyond LGBT issues, what does it say that gay Republicans would support a candidate who is blatantly racist and misogynistic, having made outrageous comments and getting the lowest poll numbers among women and minorities we’ve seen?

As Robert P. Jones, author of the “The End of White Christian America,” wrote in a Times op-ed, there’s a reason why Trump has garnered enormous support from anti-LGBT evangelicals. . . . Trump “promised to reinstate their central place in the country” and to “turn the clock back.” In that light, any LGBT GOPers who thinks Trump is going to support LGBT people aren’t just hypocrites, now defined as single-issue voters; they’re totally delusional as well.