To mark the beginning of Pride Month this year, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel did what party leaders do on these types of occasions: She sent out a tweet.
“Happy #PrideMonth!” she wrote, “@GOP is proud to have doubled our LGBTQ support over the last 4 years, and we will continue to grow our big tent by supporting measures that promote fairness and balance protections for LGBTQ Americans and those with deeply held religious beliefs.”
Inside the RNC, the missive barely registered. McDaniel, after all, had sent out a similar message in years past.
But outside the building, those 265 characters prompted immediate backlash. Not just from Democrats, who accused her of disingenuousness, but from social conservatives too who furiously dialed up McDaniel with complaints. Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, lambasted her in a scathing blog post and even encouraged people not to donate to the RNC. But the attacks, particularly from the evangelical right, were met with a shrug by the party.
McDaniel’s willingness to brush aside complaints would have been unthinkable not too long ago, Republicans say. The evangelical right remains the most committed part of the party, and the Family Research Council leader is among its most powerful figures. But the GOP has, in recent years, undergone a quiet but consequential evolution: Party leaders still exhibit strong opposition to transgender rights and the top legislative priorities of the LGBTQ community. But on the most prominent battlefield of the past few decades, same-sex marriage, they’ve all but conceded defeat.
[T]here is a widespread acceptance that debate over marriage equality is settled. There is no serious discussion about trying to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court case that ruled states are required by law to recognize the marriage of same-sex couples. There were openly gay officials working at the highest levels of the Trump administration. And in Congress, the gay rights movement has found allies in up and coming Republican stars like Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), and Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.).
While much of the country grew to accept same-sex marriage well in advance of the Supreme Court recognizing it in 2013, GOP voters didn’t. A Gallup poll from 2014 showed only 30 percent of Republican voters in support.
There have been moments over the past 20 years, however, when prominent conservatives warned Republican party leaders they were dramatically out of step with the public as a whole on the issue. Ken Mehlman, who managed George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential run, apologized for the anti-same-sex marriage rhetoric of that campaign and for his role in fighting marriage equality, while announcing that he was gay. One of the founding members of the Federalist Society, conservative attorney Ted Olson, joined forces with David Boies, a Democratic attorney, to overturn Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Hedge fund billionaire and Republican donor Paul Singer quietly donated to pro-gay rights causes and formed the American Unity PAC and American Unity Fund, which fights for LGBTQ and religious freedom. And former Vice President Dick Cheney was famously at odds with President Bush over same-sex marriage and became a supporter of the movement. His daughter, Mary Cheney, has been married to her wife since 2012.
The real breakthrough, gay Republican operatives say, came with the nomination of Donald Trump. Though evangelicals flocked to his candidacy, conservative gay rights activists also saw an opportunity. A cosmopolitan minded business person, Trump did not prioritize LGBTQ issues during his campaign and, in fact, made overt appeals to gay voters, though not by pledging support for laws to protect them.
A Gallup poll released earlier this year showed that by June 2021, 55 percent of Republicans supported same-sex marriage.
Gay rights activists and Republicans acknowledge there is still much work to be done within the GOP. For now, the official Republican party platform, unchanged since 2016, includes language defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, and gives what some say is a nod to the controversial practice of conversion therapy. Gay rights advocates in the party said Republicans missed an opportunity to change the platform’s text in 2020. . . . There will be a concerted effort next time in 2024. A more vamped up effort of what was going to happen in 2020.”
Deaton said his group, the American Unity Fund, will continue to advocate for changes to the GOP platform.
“We brought a lot of attention to the weaknesses of the platform, the mean-spirited language of the platform and it doesn’t reflect the party. It reflects a few dozen people who show up at the convention and try to run the platform committee. And we’re not going to let them do that forever,” Deaton said.
But Trump also opposed the Equality Act — which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit anti-LGBTQ and sex discrimination in public accommodations and federal programs — appointed judges deemed hostile to LGBTQ issues, rolled back protections in the workplace for non-binary workers, and pushed for the removal of protections for LGBTQ people in healthcare programs.
“I think even with Christians the gay [marriage] issue, that ship has sailed. But the trans issue is different,” said one Trump adviser.
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