Log Cabin Republicans: Morally Bankrupt Racists?

Years ago and before I "came out" I was a Republican.  Indeed, I was a city committee member for the GOP in Virginia Beach and even filed the articles of incorporation for the organization (Virginia State Corporation Commission documents continue to reflect my signature). In some ways, that was a lifetime ago and the Republican Party of today bears almost no resemblance to what the party once was.  Now, if one isn't a white supremacist, right wing Christian extremist, or consumed by greed and a thirst for lower taxes, the GOP has little to offer and personally, I cannot help but question the morality of those who cling to the party.  And then there are the so-called Log Cabin Republicans.  LGBT individuals who not only support the ugly GOP agenda but as a group have endorsed Donald Trump even as the Trump/Pence regime wages war on the LGBT community and argues that anti-LGBT discrimination should be perfectly legal. These individuals are no better than some upper class Jews who supported Hitler's rise - things ultimately turned out very badly for them.  A history lesson Log Cabin Republicans refuse to learn.  A column in The Advocate takes Log Cabin Republicans to task and reaches what is seemingly the only logical conclusion: these folks are morally bankrupt racists.   Here are column excerpts:

[B]eing an LGBTQ person doesn’t mean you have to believe a certain ideology, whether it involves economics, politics, or philosophy. The diversity of experience and values we have demonstrates that the one thing that unites us as a community is our shared experiences of being an LGBTQ person, of challenging centuries of ingrained norms about gender and sexuality. The discrimination, oppression, and the general struggles of our lives unite us, but how we go about coping and overcoming them differs in so many ways.

And then you have these Log Cabin fools.

How LGBTQ people can vote and support Donald Trump and his party is just — I mean I know how, I just hate saying it about other LGBTQ people; but I guess if they’re willing to sell us out, what sense of loyalty should I have toward them? They’re bigots and privileged trash. Log Cabin Republicans will sell the entire community out for a gentrified loft, an expense account, and a white neighborhood excluding the hired help.

We white LGBTQ folks don’t talk about it much because it makes us incredibly uncomfortable, and honestly a lot of the minority LGBTQ folks don’t get a lot of space in our media space to discuss it, but there really is a huge problem of racism in our community. Whether it’s nightclub owners refusing to admit black patrons because they dress "thuggish," our culture of preferring white standards of beauty, or not hooking up with people of certain races because it's just a "preference," the discrimination is ubiquitous.

The Log Cabin Republicans, by endorsing Trump, show us who they are. The Muslim bans, the Nazi apologia, the concentration camps and racial purging — how can anyone who isn’t a bigot endorse that? . . . when the Log Cabin Republicans endorse and therefore give tacit support to a man who has outright apologized and excused white supremacists, you can only come to one rational conclusion.

I guess you could come to another conclusion: that they’re only concerned about their own individual affluence and access to privilege, and to hell with the rest of us.

[W]ith Log Cabin Republicans, there is the overwhelming sense that it is about their own personal power that they believe will shield them from bigotry and oppression. Well, I can tell you this right now, the Republicans will still oppress you and take your money. I know folks are fatigued and tired of comparing things to Nazi Germany, but one thing folks don’t know about, and really deserves its own unique analysis, is that there were pro-Nazi Jews. They were called the League of National German Jews; upper and upper-middle class assimilationist, nationalist conservatives who claimed ties to German conservative movements and parties (who refused to associate with them). They excused and defended the Nazis because Hitler was just "stirring up the masses." Well, none of that stopped the Nazis from declaring their organization illegal and throwing their leader, Max Naumann, into a concentration camp. The Log Cabin Republicans are much the same. They say they are fighting for LGBTQ rights, but often conservative LGB folks will throw transgender people under the bus, they will decry LGBTQ activism and culture, especially of the more leftist variety, and associate only with the parts of the community that benefit themselves. To hell with the rest of us, especially if you don’t tend toward the lighter-skinned or financially endowed persuasion. All LGBTQ rights and cultural advances have come despite the Republican Party fighting tooth and nail the whole way. The Log Cabin Republicans have accomplished nothing — they'll take credit for chipping away at "don't ask, don't tell," but it was Republican homophobia and resistance to LGB military integration that made the very flawed compromise necessary.

Let's give them some due, because Log Cabin has done something — they've become tokens for a racist, corporate, and evangelical establishment that would put us in reparative therapy camps if they could. Maybe it’s time we start using "Log Cabin" or something similar for the LGBTQ version of "Uncle Tom."

Sadly, I have to agree.

The Farce of Trump's "Pro-LGBT" claims

Trump has totally sold out to anti-LGBT Christofascists

For years now I have had little more than polite contempt for LGBT Republicans who each election cycle claim that the election at hand will be the turning point where the Republican Party will shift its stance from one of comprising an open enemy of LGBT Americans to something less hostile and animus-filled.  Each election then proves that such fantasies of a changed GOP have been nothing more than the delusions of self-loathing gays who for some perverse reason want the acceptance of those who hate them and/or will sell them down the river in a heartbeat to win the votes of Christofascists. This past presidential election proved to be no exception to the same tired phenomenon of LGBT Republicans claiming that this would be the point where a change in course would sweep the Republican Party.  Worse yet, these same suckers/delusional fools claimed that Donald Trump would be "pro-LGBT."  Apparently, those uttering these words paid no attention to Trump selling his soul to Christofascists and anti-gay zealots last June in New York City. Given my past activism in the GOP, I believe it is safe to say that the ONLY thing that will cause the GOP to drop its anti-gay agenda will be repeated electoral defeats (which might have happened if every LGBT individual had gone out to vote and voted Democrat).  A main editorial in the New York Times looks at the foolishness of members of the LGBT community who allowed themselves to be played for fools by Der Trumpenführer and, in my view acted akin to any Jews who voted for Hitler in the 1930's.  Here are excerpts:

It was a jarringly unorthodox moment even for Donald Trump. At a rally in Colorado last October, an audience member handed him a gay pride flag that bore a handwritten endorsement: “LGBTs for TRUMP.” The candidate smiled as he unfurled the flag, displaying it for a few seconds. A spokesman later said Mr. Trump was “proud to carry the ‘L.G.B.T. for Trump’ rainbow flag on stage,” since he was campaigning to be “president for all Americans.”

It didn’t take long for prominent gay Republicans to proclaim that the Republican Party had, at long last, turned a corner on gay rights under Mr. Trump. After he was elected, some gay rights activists held out hope that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, would be staunch allies in the West Wing, considering that they had traveled in liberal circles in New York.

Yet, the nomination of several key officials, who have disparaged the L.G.B.T. community and sought to curtail the rights of its members, has exposed the narrative that Mr. Trump would be a champion of gay and transgender people as a fallacy. “It has been a catastrophe,” said Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and a leading strategist behind a string of legal and policy victories the community achieved during the Obama administration. “Every twitch we’ve seen from the administration has been anti-L.G.B.T.”

At the Department of Justice, where former Attorney General Loretta Lynch last year delivered an impassioned speech telling transgender Americans, “We see you; we stand with you,” her successor, Jeff Sessions, wasted no time reversing course.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which worked to expand access to health care for gay and transgender Americans, is now being led by Tom Price, who was a vocal opponent of gay rights as a congressman. The agency’s civil rights office, which oversaw regulatory changes that made it easier for transgender people to get insurance coverage for medical care, is now run by Roger Severino, an ultraconservative activist who last year accused the Obama administration of attempting to “coerce everyone, including children, into pledging allegiance to a radical new gender ideology.”

Mr. Obama’s last secretary of the Army, Eric Fanning, an openly gay man, was instrumental in nudging the Pentagon brass to allow transgender people to serve openly. Mark Green, a Tennessee state senator nominated to replace him, last year called being transgender a “disease.”

Last month, Health and Human Services amended two surveys of the elderly to remove a question about sexual orientation. The Census Bureau, meanwhile, has scrapped plans to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in the 2020 Census and the American Community Survey.

The only good news for the L.G.B.T. rights movement this year has come from the courts. . . . For the foreseeable future, the federal courts are likely to be the only avenue for progress.  It’s not too late, of course, for Mr. Trump to act like the transformational Republican on gay rights . . . Yet his record of empty talk makes that seem as unlikely as the sight of a Republican presidential candidate waving a gay pride flag.

And let's not forget that Trump himself signed executive orders reversing non-discrimination protections put in place by the Obama administration.   

Log Cabin Republicans Beg Trump To Keep Obama’s LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order

For years I have equated being gay and a Republican - or, worse yet, a Log Cabin Republican ("LCR") - as being somewhat akin to be a Jew in 1930's Germany who supports Hitler and the Nazi Party.  All of the LCR's whining about changing the Republican Party from within has always been a pile of bullshit and, in my view, a symptom of lingering internalized homophobia.  Having been in the GOP myself and a City Committee member for 8 years, the GOP simply is simply NOT susceptible to change from within.  Only successive electoral defeats will bring change.  Now, with the election of Der Fuhrer, change from within is even more remote.  So now we see the LCR begging Trump to not rescind the pro-LGBT executive orders put in place by Barack Obama. Seriously, what did these cretins expect to happen if Trump was elected?  But for the harm that will be done to others in the LGBT community, the LCR members deserve whatever misfortune that may befall them under the Republicans they worked to elect.  Their beg letter to Trump is here.  Here's a brief summary of the contents:

At the present time, there is no federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. States have a pastiche of laws and gubernatorial executive orders—some prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and some only on the basis of sexual orientation, while 28 states have no statutes protecting members from the LGBT community from discrimination at all.

For FY2016, $1.8 trillion contract dollars were awarded in states that have no state-level non-discrimination protections for gender identity/expression, with $1.7 trillion of that total going to states that also have no protections for sexual orientation.

More than 61% of the 26 states that received $50 billion or more in federal contracts in 2016 have no employment non-discrimination laws explicitly covering sexual orientation, and 65% lack laws covering gender identity.

Of the 20 states with the most EEOC complaints, only five have nondiscrimination protections covering sexual orientation and gender identity.

The lack of formal, federal non-discrimination legislation allows the LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order to address the plight of the nearly four in 10 (38%) LGBT employees who were “out” at work who reported harassment and discrimination in the past five years, compared to only 10% of LGBT employees who were “not out.”

At the present time, there is no federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Executive orders prohibiting discrimination against minority communities have a decades-long history with support from both Republican and Democratic presidents.

Federal prohibitions against gay discrimination have been a matter of United States policy via executive order since 1998,and were maintained in the administration of Republican President George W. Bush.

The amended executive order prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity has been a matter of realized policy for nearly two years. Maintaining the LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order is not only right, but popular: 68% of Americans support workplace protections for LGBT individuals.

Maintaining the LGBT Non-Discrimination Executive Order would send a strong signal that President Trump is the “real friend” to the LGBT community that he vowed to be while campaigning for the presidency.

I'm sorry, but the LCR's have been living in a frigging fantasy world.  Now, it seems they are about to receive a harsh wake up call. 

Log Cabin Republicans Refuse to Endorse Trump

Proving that even the self-loathing gays at the Log Cabin Republicans ("LCR") have limits to the level of self-degradation in which they will participate, the LCR have refused to endorse Donald Trump for president.  The main motivation?  Seemingly Trump's alliance with leading Christofascists who have made a lucrative career denigrating LGBT individuals and striving to block any advancement of LGBT equality under the civil laws.  The Advocate looks at the LRC's refusal to endorse Trump.  Here are excerpts:

After endorsing John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, the Log Cabin Republicans are declining to endorse the Republicans' 2016 nominee for president, Donald Trump.

The nation's most prominent LGBT Republican organization released a statement on Saturday that acknowledged the conflicting nature of Trump's LGBT positions.

[T}he Log Cabin Republicans have long emphasized that we are not a single-issue organization, nor are our members single-issue voters. Even if we were, rhetoric alone regarding LGBT issues does not equate to doctrine. As Mr. Trump spoke positively about the LGBT community in the United States, he concurrently surrounded himself with senior advisors with a record of opposing LGBT equality, and committed himself to supporting legislation such as the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act” that Log Cabin Republicans opposes."

As Log Cabin pointed out, Trump supports "religious discrimination" legislation that would allow LGBT people to be refused service based on religious grounds. Trump also picked the man associated with Indiana's "turn away the gays" bill, anti-gay governor Mike Pence, as his running mate. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Trump is opposed to marriage equality and has been silent on the so-called Equality Act, which would ban housing and employment discrimination against LGBT people.

Gay Republicans are Flocking to Hillary Clinton

I was a Republican for the majority of my adult life and came from a family of Republicans. However, having watched the GOP slide to hate and extremism for some time now - I resigned from my city committee seat years ago - I have argued for some time that unless one is (i) a self-loathing LGBT individual, perhaps still scarred by a fundamentalist religious upbringing, and/or (ii) an extremely wealthy, self-centered individual (such as billionaire Peter Thiel) whose wealth insulates them from the discrimination that the rest of us face, there is no way that someone who is LGBT can support the Republican Party or its candidates at any level of government, including the presidency. As Metro Weekly is reporting, some gay Republicans have seemingly "seen the light" - or pulled their heads out of their asses - and are flocking to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest.  Here are some article highlights:

With three months until Election Day, Joe Swartz, a 32-year-old gay conservative, is doing the unthinkable: Supporting Hillary Clinton for president.

“I’m part of an organization called Republicans for Hillary. And we have been lambasted significantly by many Republicans about what terrible turncoats we are, how much we need to change our affiliation, and ‘My God, Trump is not great, but the alternative is Hillary,'” says Swartz. “And I say, ‘Exactly. The alternative is Hillary.’

“Imagine how low the bar of your candidates has to be,” he continues, “that people who have been on your side for 10, 20 years, people who have gone out and volunteered for Republican campaigns, are now voting for Hillary Clinton, someone they naturally loathed, because she has a modicum of normalcy.”

It’s a dramatic turnaround from 2015, when Swartz was confident Republicans would take back the White House. “We were gearing up to the idea that this is the end of eight years of Democratic rule,” he says. “It was really ours to lose.”

But then Donald Trump started winning primaries, and everything changed. After Trump had cemented his victory, Clinton became the only viable option for Swartz.

Swartz could be written off as a disgruntled Republican who can’t accept the result of the primaries, but as Trump becomes the figurehead of the GOP, several prominent Republicans and fiscal conservatives have begun to distance themselves from the party. And that means weighing the possibility of supporting Clinton for the presidency.

On Monday, Sally Bradshaw, a top advisor to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and a lifelong Republican, announced she was officially switching her party affiliation to independent, and refusing to vote for Trump. Bradshaw told CNN in an email that, if the race was close in Florida, she would be casting her ballot for Clinton.

“But,” she added, “we are at a crossroads and have nominated a total narcissist — a misogynist — a bigot. This is a time when country has to take priority over political parties. Donald Trump cannot be elected president.”

On Tuesday, Congressman Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) became the first Republican member of Congress to come out in support of Clinton’s candidacy. 

Jimmy LaSalvia, the former co-founder of the LGBT conservative group GOProud, is another Hillary convert. . . . Trump’s actions on the campaign trail and his vision for the GOP have forced LaSalvia to “shed his partisan loyalty” and leave the Republican Party. It’s made the unthinkable — voting for Hillary Clinton — a reality.

“Hillary Clinton has been the enemy my entire adult life,” he says. “I never thought I’d vote for a Clinton, but there’s just no choice here. And even for people who aren’t ready to admit they’re for Hillary, more and more people will start to consider her, even if they’d never considered voting Democrat before.”

Another Republican risking their political career is Yale Scott, a George W. Bush appointee who worked in the White House and the State Department. He’s as Republican as they come, something all but ensured by growing up in Oklahoma. But now, the 36-year-old is supporting Clinton, fundraising for her, and volunteering at campaign events.

“I definitely still align myself with a strong faith and being fiscally conservative, but this election is so important because Donald Trump is dangerous for our country,” says Scott. “I feel like he’s a loose cannon. 

The Utter Failure of the Log Cabin Republicans

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Trump Is Surrounding Himself With Vicous Homophobes

Trump and Cruz who Trump as mentioned as a Supreme Court nominee

Some have tried to claim that Donald Trump will be more friendly towards gays than some of his critics maintain.  As a child, I remember having my parents drum in to me and my siblings that you are known by the company you keep.  If one applies that rule to Mr. Trump, he is keeping company with a bunch of virulent homophobes.   A piece in Huffington Post by Michelangelo Signorile looks at the anti-gay elements with whom Trump is not only consorting but also considering for appointments in his administration.  Perhaps most frightening of all is Trump's purported consideration of Ted Cruz for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.  An appointment that might make the late Antonin Scalia look somewhat reasonable.  The take away is that,if one is LGBT or has LGBT friends and family members, you need to register to vote and go to the polls and vote Democrat.  Here are article highlights:

Ben Carson should have been sidelined from GOP politics forever after his presidential campaign tanked. In addition to his major foreign policy gaffes and his bizzaro tax plan, he’d defined himself as a complete troglodyte on social issues, particularly his horrific comments about homosexuality. He’d compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, and said prison turned men toward homosexuality, proving being gay is a “choice.” He claimed that gay marriage would lead to polygamy and bring something akin to “the fall of the Roman Empire.”

But no, Donald Trump has announced that Ben Carson will play a role on his vice presidential selection committee — and Carson is reported to actually be on the VP running mate shortlist himself. Also reported to be on the shortlist is another enemy of LGBT equality, who’s been advising Trump as part of his inner circle for months now and who endorsed Trump early: Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

The GOP senator is among the most anti-LGBT senators in history, scoring a zero continually from the Human Rights Campaign, voting for everything anti-gay that ever came before the Senate, like a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and against everything remotely pro-gay, from a hate crimes bill to protect gays to the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He’s said it would be “a big concern“ to have a gay Supreme Court nominee and attacked the “activist judiciary” that ruled for marriage equality. He opposed Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court in part based on her support for LGBT equality as dean of Harvard Law School.

Also reported on Trump’s short list, and another man who’s been privately advising Trump and publicly praising him, is Newt Gingrich, the perennial homophobe who called gay marriage a “temporary aberration“ and compared it to paganism. In 2014 he implied the LGBT rights movement was inspiring the left’s “new fascism.”

Others on the shortlist, all of whom have been talking with or advising Trump to varying degrees are; Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin, who said gay marriage violates “religious freedom,” successfully fought hard against LGBT rights measures in her state, dropped benefits for all couples in the Oklahoma National Guard rather than give benefits to same-sex couples and whom Trump said would be a “great” VP pick; Chris Christie, who’s opposed gay marriage for years as a bully to equality in New Jersey; and Florida governor Rick Scott, who fought marriage equality, supports allowing religious-based adoption agencies to turn away gay couples (and is opposed to adoption by gays altogether, though didn’t fight a court ruling) and who signed an anti-gay law as recently as this past March.

Trump also will soon release his picks for Supreme Court justices, saying he would choose them in the “mold” of the late virulently anti-gay Antonin Scalia, and even floated in recent days the idea of putting that homophobe from hell, Ted Cruz, on the high court.

Looking at who he’s surrounding himself with now, and the fact that he’s received huge support from evangelical voters as well their leaders, like Jerry Falwell Jr., it’s even more clear that, like Ronald Reagan, no gay friends from the past will likely get in the way of Trump dutifully bowing to moralists who helped put him in office.

Trump is himself opposed to marriage equality and told religious conservatives during a Christian Broadcasting Network interview to “trust me” to overturn what he called the “shocking” Obergefell ruling from the Supreme Court on marriage equality. While it would be quite difficult to overturn Obergefell, it’s safe to say, looking at who Donald Trump is turning to now, that it’s not likely there will be any progress on LGBT rights — and quite likely there could be great harm to them — under a Trump presidency.

Are Trump and Cruz Being Disingenuous on Gay Marriage?

Every political campaign cycle - and in Virginia with its off cycle state elections, that means every year - LGBT Americans see their lives cynically used as political footballs as Republicans in particular strive to prostitute themselves to the Christofascists and ludicrously termed "people of faith." People of hate, bigotry and superstition might be a better phrase.  This year is proving to be no exception as all of the GOP presidential candidates make statements to appease the knuckle draggers.  The question is, what do these candidates really believe given their sometimes conflicting statements.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the perhaps disingenuous game being played by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as they seem to shift their statements depending upon the audience in front of them.  Personally, I do not trust either of them.  Here are article highlights:  

Despite the fact that the Republican candidates have been locked in a down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred, ugly-as-all-get-out primary season, an issue typically central to their party’s contests—and internal battles—has somehow avoided much scrutiny: Where do the GOP’s top presidential contenders stand on gay rights?

The last time a Republican won the White House, when George W. Bush snagged a re-election victory in 2004, opposition to same-sex marriage was central to the party’s identity.

But now, the GOP’s top contender avoids addressing the issue, and the candidate in a close second seems extraordinarily comfortable saying different things to different groups of would-be supporters.

Donald Trump, the frontrunner, has attended at least one same-sex wedding and publicly praised his acquaintance Elton John’s marriage to his male partner. And Ted Cruz, despite consistently voicing his opposition to federal protections for same-sex couples, has reportedly made off-the-record comments indicating that the issue isn’t actually that big of a priority for him.

That said, the Texas senator has made legal protections for businesses and individuals who don’t want to hire or serve same-sex couples a central part of his campaign. He regularly talks up his religious freedom focus on the stump, arguing that Christians in the U.S. are under attack.

Trump has telegraphed that he may sympathize with that view, indicating that he supports the First Amendment Defense Act, a bill that gay rights advocates say could provide cover for businesses to discriminate against LGBT people.

Trump has made a host of comments on the question of whether or not he supports the Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex couples to wed, and it’s given Log Cabin Republicans serious pause. The group put out a video last month highlighting the wide variety of statements he’s made on the subject. They include: that same-sex marriage is the law of the land, that evangelical Christians who oppose same-sex marriage rights can “trust” him on the issue, and that Americans need to come together.

“We’re going to bring people together. That’s your thing, and other people have their thing,” he told a New England Cable News reporter who asked him if he would advance gay rights. “We have to bring all people together.”

That hasn’t happened. At all. Instead, Trump has been resolutely obtuse about the issue—drawing condemnation from the anti-marriage-equality National Organization for Marriage (which endorsed Cruz), and bafflement from Log Cabin Republicans. 

Craffey said Aminoff [of the LA Log Cabin Reoublicans] told attendees that Cruz supported his decision to meet with them and said his campaign should be doing more to court LGBT Republicans’ votes. Aminoff didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story (and neither did the Trump or Cruz campaigns).

Craffey added that despite Cruz’s stated opposition to marriage equality—the candidate holds that individual states should be able to decide whether or not to recognize same-sex unions—he doesn’t think Cruz would do much about it as president.

“Ted Cruz wouldn’t be anti-gay, just hands off,” he said.

And he said he thinks Cruz is playing up that position to boost his primary prospects.

“If you want to make it through the primary, it’s like a necessary evil,” he added.

Penny Nance, who heads the socially conservative group Concerned Women for America and recently endorsed Cruz, said evangelical Christians need to worry more about their credibility on marriage than anything else.

“We have diluted marriage,” she said. “The divorce rates, the cohabitation rates in the church are very similar to everyone else’s, and so we’ve got to get our own act together. We don’t have the moral standing to talk about this issue if we’re not walking the walk ourselves.”

I trust neither of them and see electing a Democrat as the only safeguard against threats to LGBT rights and continued marriage equality.  As for the Log Cabin Republicans, I continue to view them as the equivalent of Jews joining Hitler's Nazi Party.

How Trump Played the Log Cabin Republicans for Fools

As a former GOP activist and sitting GOP city committee member for 8 years before I left the GOP in the face of the Christofascist takeover, I continue to be amazed at the delusions that predominate among the Log Cabin Republicans who somehow incredibly believe that they can somehow turn the GOP toward a more gay friendly stance.  The reality is that such a change will only happen literally over the dead bodies of the Christofascists.  And then there are the duplicitous GOP candidates who play the Log Cabin crowd for complete suckers.  The sad reality is that, if one is gay, being gay and supporting the GOP is about as insane as being a Jew in 1930's Germany and supporting the Nazi Party.  It is simple insanity.   A piece in Huffington Post looks at how Donald Trump played the Log Cabin Republicans for utter fools.  Here are article highlights: 

Back in December, the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) were absolutely giddy about the idea of Donald Trump as president. 

Yes, he'd called Mexican immigrants "rapists." Yes, he'd made vile remarks about women. And yes, he'd said Muslims should be banned from entering the country. But as far as the gay GOP group was concerned, compared to most of the other GOP candidates, with their fire and brimstone, Trump was including gays in the straight white men's club merely by seeming to accept the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality, even if he disagreed with it. So, everyone else be damned.

Gregory T. Angelo, president of LCR, told Reuters in December, "He is one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency."

But only a month later, Trump happily accepted the endorsement of evangelical leader and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. -- about as close to an "enemy to the gay community" as you can get -- and Falwell now energetically campaigns for Trump. And then this past weekend, courting evangelicals in Iowa, Trump said he will work to reverse the Supreme Court's marriage equality ruling, promising to put "certain judges on the bench" to make it happen.  And suddenly, LCR has gone silent on Trump. Woops!

But they've not been silent on Hillary Clinton. In fact, the group launched an ad over the weekend that attacks Clinton as someone who hasn't been there for the LGBT community "when it counted" and which promotes... Bernie Sanders!

Yes, the Log Cabin Republicans really think LGBT people should support democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and want him to win the presidency, right? Yeah, and Donald Trump is not a fascist.

LCR, in fact, got dumped by Trump as soon as Trump saw that many evangelicals would back him even though he's thrice married, can't quote bible verses accurately and owns and operates casinos. And now, trying to nail that vote down further -- and knowing that he'll need that constituency in South Carolina and beyond -- Trump has thrown gays under the same bus he threw Latinos and Muslims.

It doesn't matter what Donald Trump really believes . . . . He will say whatever it takes to get elected, knowing there are so many people so driven by anger and cult of personality that they'll support him, and he has no problem whipping up hate against other people in the process, emboldening those who discriminate.

The idea that any LGBT people could support Trump while he demagogues other minorities is not just sad; it's repellant. But the Log Cabin Republicans' thinking that he'd actually be "good for the gays" was also just plain deluded.

Florida Tea Party Leader: Log Cabin Republicans a "Thug Organization"

Danita Kilcullen

One thing that I cynically always find entertaining is how the far right always attributes others with their own traits and tactics.  A case in point: a Florida Tea Party leader (pictured above) who claims that the Log Cabin Republicans are a "thug organization."  Obviously, this woman must have been looking in the mirror as she uttered the statement.  The statement is ludicrous for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the Log Cabin Republicans might best be described as a bunch of delusional masochists who continue to support a political party that hates them.  Second, it's the Tea Party that uses thug tactics to assert its agenda against rational Republicans who - unlike the Tea Party - are not wholly untethered from reality and who are not motivated by hate, religious extremism and racism.  The Sun-Sentinel looks at the batshitery that is typical of the Tea Party.  Here are excerpts:

An email from Danita Kilcullen, co-founder of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, has caused a new round of agita in the Broward Republican Party.

Kilcullen’s email, written earlier this month, was apparently a response to an email below, from Andy Eddy of the Broward Log Cabin Republicans, a largely gay group.

She said the Log Cabin Republicans are “a thug organization” which has “all but taken over” the Broward Republican Party.

Kilcullen also makes clear she does not like the proposed federal law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Here's [a portion of Kilcullen's] e-mail:

“We must fight with all we have... We must put  pressure on the House like has never been seen before.  I'll be damned if I will ever be forced to hire someone with orange hair, body/neck/face covered with tattoos, multiple piercings, or a man in a dress... or for that matter, a demonstrative effeminate male or purposeful butch-looking female.  The Log Cabins are the same lobbyist organization that has all but taken over BREC; and besides that, we have someone on the Board of BREC who is using her position to openly put pressure on some BREC members to stand for same-sex marriage.

Can't you feel the Christian love towards others?  If the Log Cabin Republicans really want to change the GOP rather than engage self-flagellation, they need to work to have the GOP defeated across the board so that the party will have to either change and come into the modern world or die.

CMI Poll: 90% of Gays & Lesbians Vote for Barack Obama

A new Community Marketing Inc. poll indicates that LGBT Americans voted for Barack Obama at perhaps the highest rate ever received by a presidential candidate.  Not, of course, that Mitt Romney and the GOP party platform hadn't given a huge incentive to do so.  Here are some of the poll findings:

The Community Marketing & Insights (CMI) pre-election poll showed that 90% of gay men and lesbians voted for Barack Obama. . . . . LGBTs represent an estimated 5% of United States voters and an overwhelming majority supported the coalition that produced Barack Obama’s victory.

90% support for Obama was seen in all Battleground States. The LGBT percentage was just below the level that Obama received from the African American community.

Demonstrating the importance of the election, 95% of LGBTs indicated that they would vote in the election and 41% indicated that the had already voted before election day.

Final data indicated that 90% supported Barack Obama, 6% for Mitt Romney and 4% a third party candidate.   41% of gays and lesbians gave money to the Obama campaign.

 Given the closeness of some of the results, LGBT voters clearly were important to Obama's victory.  These finding also ought to show GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans that their organizations are increasingly a joke in the face of the radical anti-gay agenda of today's Republican party. 

Christianists Go Ballistic Over Romney Meeting With Gays

While it is too early to know for certain the precise details of the meeting involved, it does seem clear now that Mitt Romney did participate in a secret meeting with leaders of the leaders the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) a week ago at a remote Virginia farmhouse.  And apparently whatever Romney, a proven pathological liar said to the self-loathing members of LRC it was enough to dupe them into endorsing Romney.  I continue to believe that any gay who supports today's virulently anti-gay GOP is akin to a black citizen supporting the KKK.   But the fact that the meeting occurred has some of the Christofascists going totally ape shit.  America Blog looks at what is known and the Christianist reaction.  Here are some highlights:

It seems that yesterday’s bombshell from Nation reporter Ben Adler has now been confirmed.
The reason that gay Republican leaders are “confident” that Mitt Romney will support banning workplace discrimination against gay and trans people is because leaders of the lead gay Republican gay group, Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), met secretly with Romney a week ago at a remote Virginia farmhouse.

More from Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade:

A meeting that took place at a Virginia farmhouse between officials from Log Cabin Republicans and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney included a discussion about workplace non-discrimination, but attendees who spoke to the Washington Blade wouldn’t enumerate any commitments made by Romney.

R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin’s executive director, said workplace non-discrimination protections were the focus of the meeting, which took place Oct. 17 at Greenwood Farm in Leesburg, Va., which was a precursor the organization’s endorsement of the candidate announced on Tuesday.

“I can say with confidence that the Romney administration would work on desirable outcomes for workplace non-discrimination,” Cooper said. “I’m going to leave it broad like that because I think there’s room for administrative action as well as legislative. I also think it’s probably fair to say that legislation in a form of an ENDA or an ENDA-like legislation is certainly realistic.”

Is Romney believable on his "promise"?  Not if he changes his mind as he does on everything else.  Perhaps the meeting was just more of Romney's "lying for the lord" to try to get himself elected.  What is known is that the Christofascists are none too happy with Romney.  America Blog continues with this:

Here’s the American Family Association’s response to yesterday’s news. Note that they demanded that Romney himself address this issue. Now that we have news that Romney himself secretly met with gay Republicans, he won’t have a choice but to personally try to assuage the religious right that this story isn’t true.

But if he does that, it has to happen publicly, or the religious right minions across the country won’t know that Romney didn’t mean it when he promised the gays the moon. And if he does go public, Log Cabin will look like a fool for believing yet another Romney lie, and Romney risks the 25$%-30% of the gay vote that one might expect him to get, based on past gay GOP turnout.

My money is on the likelihood that Romney was lying and that the folks at LCR have been played for suckers.  If elected, Romney will pretend that the meeting never happened.

Ninth Circuit Dismisses Log Cabin Republican v. United States

In a disappointing development a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dismissed the case of Log Cabin Republicans v. United States as moot and vacated all of the rulings in the case, including Judge Phillips' find that DADT was unconstitutional. In truth, the case is anything but moot as 14,000+ servicemembers were wrongfully discharged and many receive reduced retirements and/or were charged for their training costs - all because of an unconstitutional religious based law. The case needs to proceed with a binding finding of unconstitutionality. It is most unfortunate that the three judge panel clearly put politics ahead of justice. Hopefully, the LCR's will seek an en banc review of the three judge panel's ruling and have the case put back on the active docket. Obviously, the U.S. military doesn't want to have to pay for past unconstitutional discharges. Here are highlights from MetroWeekly:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today dismissed the Log Cabin Republicans v. United States appeal as moot, following the end of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law on Sept. 20. Further, the appeals court vacated the historic trial court decision striking down DADT as unconstitutional, holding, "Those now-void legal rulings and factual findings have no precedential, preclusive, or binding effect."

LCR's lead attorney, White & Case partner Dan Woods, said the group would not be giving up its fight, saying in a statement issued by LCR, "This is an important issue for all Americans and we anticipate seeking re-hearing before the full Ninth Circuit."

The Ninth Circuit panel -- made up of circuit judges Arthur L. Alarcon, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, and Barry G. Silverman -- issued the decision per curiam, meaning the decision was issued for the court and not in the name of any particular judge.

Once the court decided to dismiss the case because of the repeal of 10 U.S.C. 654 -- the DADT statute -- the decision did not address the underlying issue at trial of the constitutionality of DADT.

In the LCR statement, R. Clarke Cooper, the group's executive director, said, "The ruling in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States is the reason why Congress finally acted to end this failed and unconstitutional policy. This decision by the Ninth Circuit denies more than 14,000 discharged gay and lesbian servicemembers an important means of obtaining justice for the wrong perpetuated against them under the ban, and leaves open the possibility of future violations of servicemembers' rights.

Once again - at least so far - the court system has thwarted justice. Unfortunately, it is something that happens every day under our legal system.

Obama DOJ Flips Gay Americans the Finger and Files To Reinstate DADT

Why is it that every time I start to have a slight feeling that maybe I've been unduly harsh on the faux "fierce advocate" in the White House, Obama and his minions again do something to throw LGBT citizens once again under the bus and prove my misgivings on the man to be well founded? I ask myself at times whether the man bi-polar or what when it comes to abusing those who might like to be his supporters? Personally, I am tired of supporting Obama simply because he's not as big of an enemy as the GOP alternative. It's definitely hard to have enthusiasm.
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The latest example of Obama's on again off again betrayals of LGBT Americans is the reported decision by the Department of Justice - you know, that office that operates under Obama's appointee, the Attorney General - is moving to file a request that the 9th Circuit reconsider its ruling that reinstated the world wide ban on enforcement of DADT. Obviously, the ban could easily have been allowed to remained in place until the supposed legislative repeal of DADT is finally completed. Not that I even trust Obama at this point not to betray LGBT Americans on that process somehow. Given the current make up of the U. S. Supreme Court with gay haters like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito on the Court, if DOJ's games ultimately take the case before that court, there is no guarantee that the 9th Circuit ruling would be upheld. WTF is Obama doing? Does he think these games will make the GOP base hate him less? Here are highlights from the Log Cabin Republicans on this unfortunate development:
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The Obama Department of Justice is filing an emergency motion with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pleading with the court to reconsider its order vacating the stay. The Ninth Circuit last week removed a stay against the worldwide injunction awarded in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States, effectively halting ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’
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“This latest maneuver by the President continues a pattern of doublespeak that all Americans should find troubling. All this does is further confuse the situation for our men and women in uniform,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director, combat veteran and captain in the United States Army Reserve. “Let me be clear – the president is asking the court for the power to continue threatening servicemembers with investigation and discharge, and the right to turn away qualified Americans from military service for no reason other than their sexual orientation. Even if the administration never uses that power, it is still wrong, and the Ninth Circuit was clear that there is no justification for continuing the violation of servicemembers’ constitutional rights.
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"The motion that the government filed today has no other purpose than to request - on an emergency basis - that the military be permitted to investigate and discharge servicemembers, and block new enlistments, based solely on those individuals' sexuality,” said Dan Woods, partner of White & Case and lead attorney in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States. “The government's request is inexplicable on any other basis."
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As I have noted before, I would welcome a primary challenge to the "Follower in Chief" whose main attribute is double talk and the total lack of a spine. I fear that he's setting the up Democrats at the national level for a reprise of what happened in Virginia in 2009.

Ninth Circuit Finally Halts DADT Enforcement

Better late than never as the saying goes. Today, the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay that it had imposed to block the world wide injunction that was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States which blocked enforcement of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Frankly, the stay should never have been issued in my opinion. The immediate result is that the U. S. military must immediately cease enforcement of DADT while the wait continues for the Department of Defense and the White House to deliver the certifications needed to finally repeal DADT. The order lifting the stay can be found here. No doubt the Christo-fascists will have yet another conniption fit and whine about judicial tyranny. Metro Weekly has coverage on this development. Here are highlights:
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In an order issued by a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips's judgment halting the worldwide enforcement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as a result of her decision in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States has been put back in effect.
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DADT cannot be enforced, per the order, unless the government gets a stay of the order from either the full Ninth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court pending an appeal of today's decision.
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The three-judge panel -- Judges Alex Kozinski, Kim Wardlaw and Richard Paez -- decided to lift the appellate court's earlier stay of Phillips's order pending the appeal of the LCR case because, the judges write, "The circumstances and balance of hardships have changed, and appellants/cross-appellees can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay."
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Among the circumstances cited by the court are the July 1 filing in Karen Golinski's federal case seeking health insurance benefits for her wife and the related earlier Feb. 23 letter from Attorney General Eric Holder declaring that he and President Barack Obama had decided that heightened scrutiny applies to classifications -- such as DADT.
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The judges also note that "the process of repealing Section 654 [-- the DADT law --] is well underway, and the preponderance of the armed forces are expected to have been trained by mid-summer." Smith echoed this fact, writing to Metro Weekly, "[I]mplementation of the DADT repeal voted by the Congress and signed in to law by the President last December is proceeding smoothly, is well underway, and certification is just weeks away."
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In addition to lifting the stay, the Ninth Circuit set arguments on the appeal of the merits of the LCR case itself -- as opposed to the stay of Phillips's order pending the appeal, which was what the judges altered today -- for the week of Aug. 29. White House and Justice Department spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment.