A fundraising email from Log Cabin Republicans’ President Gregory T. Angelo makes some salient points. Excerpt:
For the past three weeks, I’ve been in regular communication with the Trump Transition Team, the group tasked with organizing personnel and policy for our president-elect.
While Log Cabin Republicans was working to have a relationship with our nation’s incoming chief executive, the LGBT Left was busy demonizing Donald Trump and fundraising off of bogeymen. …After working for decades against Republicans rather than with them and putting all their faith into the failed candidacy of Hillary Clinton, purportedly “non-partisan” LGBT advocacy groups now face GOP majorities in the House and Senate, and a Republican in the White House….
Collectively, LGBT advocacy organizations on the Left have staff in the hundreds. Budgets in the millions. And yet, they don’t have a single point of contact in the incoming Trump administration. …
While LGBT liberals were breathlessly lamenting this fact to the New York Times, Log Cabin Republicans was quietly working behind-the-scenes to ensure the advances in LGBT freedom we have made thus far remain secure and continue in a Trump administration. No one else is doing this.
If interested in donating, here’s a link.
The New York Times article referenced above reports:
The election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency sent panic through much of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, which for the first time in eight years will face an administration hostile to its civil rights goals and a president-elect who has expressed a desire to reverse many of its political gains.
Jay Brown, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights organization, said its office had received calls throughout the day on Wednesday from frightened people who wanted to know what the election results might mean for them.
And yet:
Mr. Trump has no reputation for personal animosity toward gay people, and the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay and lesbian political organization, congratulated him on his victory. He employed gay people in the Trump Organization, spent most of his life in socially liberal New York City, and surprised some Republicans this year when he said transgender people should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate,” a view held by few others in the party.
But many L.G.B.T. leaders said they were unmoved by accounts of Mr. Trump’s personal tolerance.
Of course they were.
More. Given that the big LGBT political lobbies, which officially say they’re nonpartisan but operate as Democratic party auxiliaries, are now sending out their own fundraising appeals around their opposition to all things Trump and Republican, it’s worth repeating this observation from a recent post:
For more than two decades the Human Rights Campaign has failed to pass its signature legislative goal, which for most of that time was the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and is now the Equality Act. This includes periods with both a Democratic president and Democratic congress (under Bill Clinton and Barack Obama), and periods with a Republican congress but enough GOP support to push ENDA through. What happened? Every time the measure was poised to pass, activist groups would insert some new provision that would lose majority support (adding transgender protections most prominently, and now the expansion to include public accommodations). Or, as with ENDA under Harry Reid’s Senate and Nancy Pelosi’s House, the Democrats would strangely fail to move the bill out of committee, with nary a protest from HRC—until Republicans were back in charge.
21 Comments for “Look Who’s Shut Out Now”
posted by Jorge on
Collectively, LGBT advocacy organizations on the Left have staff in the hundreds. Budgets in the millions. And yet, they don’t have a single point of contact in the incoming Trump administration. …
This coming from an organization that didn’t endorse him because it was worried about the future of the country (noble men and women!). I wonder what my favorite out of power but still kicking columnist will make of the current situation?
posted by JohnInCA on
This is a weird paradox.
Gay conservatives and Republicans constantly whine that more LGBT people aren’t conservative or Republican. But the rest of the conservative movement and Republican party? Don’t. In fact, they telegraph in as many ways as they can that they don’t want me.
It’s like the Mormons that come around. “Well yes, you would have to divorce your husband, alienate your family, and give us 10% of your earnings for the rest of your life, but then we’ll totally let you into our club so long as you never date, have sex, or masturbate again!”
We get that you think the club is cool. But if I’m going to join any club (and I’m not inclined to), I think I’ll join a club that doesn’t continue to argue I should have my marriage annulled against the will of myself and my husband. Oh, and while I’m listing requirements that won’t be met for a long time, how about the party admitting it was wrong on DOMA and DADT, that it was wrong to oppose marriage equality, and that all their apocalypse scenarios of what would happen if I got married were just fear-mongering hyperbole?
If the GOP can’t be arsed to admit my marriage won’t end the nation, then I can’t be arsed to send $5 to LCR.
posted by MDBuck on
The point is that someone has to stay and do the heavy lifting of working to convince the members of the “club” that they need to change, and that the REAL definition of conservatism would support law-abiding, tax-paying, hard working gay people deserve the same benefits as everyone else. Instead, the hypocritical homo establishment continues to deride, belittle, and absolutely savage groups like the LCR. Either you are for having all cylinders work towards equality, or you’re not.
posted by JohnInCA on
Actually, I think if LCR has proved anything, it’s that no, nobody needs to “stay and do the heavy lifting” when it comes to Republicans. They can just sit around, bitch about liberals, and let cultural osmosis do the work for them.
Or to put it another way… LCR has been useless in changing the party for decades. What makes you think they’re suddenly going to not be useless?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Either you are for having all cylinders work towards equality, or you’re not.
I’m for having all cylinders work towards equality.
As I said in another comment, “I applaud LCR for “quietly working behind-the-scenes to ensure the advances in LGBT freedom we have made thus far remain secure and continue in a Trump administration”, and hope that LCR does a better job of advancing “equal means equal” within the Trump administration than LCR did during the last Republican administration.”
I sincerely mean that — both aspects — although I wish that LCR would be less “quiet”. As a veteran of the battles to turn the Democratic Party around on LGBT issues, I’m convinced that if we had stayed “quiet” rather than raising hell, we would have failed. Of course, the two parties are different, and it is not a sin to raise hell in the Democratic Party. We are known for our brawls. The Republican Party may be different, and operating quietly and stealthily may be the only viable course open to LCR. I simply don’t know.
[T]he hypocritical homo establishment continues to deride, belittle, and absolutely savage groups like the LCR.
I that it is fair comment to acknowledge that LCR met little success to date in moving the ball toward equality within the Republican Party. I think that is measurable, objective reality.
I hope that LCR is more effective going forward than it has been in the past. The Republican Party seems to be headed in the wrong direction on LGBT issues (e.g. the 2016 Platform), and I think that LCR may well be overpowered in the fight to turn it party back around, particularly with Pence in the administration. I hope that I’m wrong.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Gays and lesbians have always been shut out of Republican administrations.
I applaud LCR for “quietly working behind-the-scenes to ensure the advances in LGBT freedom we have made thus far remain secure and continue in a Trump administration”, and hope that LCR does a better job of advancing “equal means equal” within the Trump administration than LCR did during the last Republican administration.
That last effort was a bust, pure and simple. The Republican Party went from bad to worse during the Bush years.
Maybe I’m imagining things, but homocon gushing over Trump sounds a lot like the homocon gushing over Bush. Bush, like Trump, was touted as the most “gay supportive” Republican President in the history of the party. We heard endlessly about how Bush was “personally tolerant” of gays and lesbians as a private citizen and employed gay staffers in the White House. And so on.
None of that changed a single anti-equality position of the Bush administration, and none of that “personal tolerance” gave Bush pause as he, Rove and his gay RNC chair developed and effectuated a nationwide reelection strategy that used gays and lesbians as political cannon fodder and resulted in anti-marriage amendments in 30+ states.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think that LCR is going to make any difference in the Trump administration, either. LCR may have “contacts”, but social conservatives have the Vice Presidency and the Congress. Trump’s positions on most gay/lesbian issues are solidly anti-equality and I don’t think that a few “contacts” are going to change that. As the Times article notes, we “face an administration hostile to [LGBT] civil rights goals and a president-elect who has expressed a desire to reverse many of [our] political gains”.
Maybe I’m wrong about that, though, and maybe LCR will influence the tiger to change its stripes. We’ll get some measure of LCR’s effectiveness during the first weeks and months of the Trump administration, as we see what the administration does with respect to the executive orders and department regulations protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in federal employment, medical care and other areas.
Maybe LCR will be successful and we won’t have to spend the next 4-8 years fighting inch by inch to hang on to the gains we’ve made and fight off attempts to overturn or cripple Obergefell.
I don’t have much expectation of that happening, though. I think that we have a long, hard fight on our hands.
posted by TJ on
So….Stephen’s affair with the Libertarian party was brief and unsatisfactory?
I guess we can look forward to Stephen trying to sell us a magical, rainbow bridge that leads to no where.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
So….Stephen’s affair with the Libertarian party was brief and unsatisfactory?
Yeah, Stephen’s brief flirtation with the Libertarian Party (it never rose to the level of an affair) is over and done with, I suspect. It was a protest vote against Trump, not a vote for Johnson. Evidence? Stephen told us that he was going to vote for Johnson on July 17, and in the following 114 days before the election, Stephen not once offered a single positive comment about Johnson.
I guess we can look forward to Stephen trying to sell us a magical, rainbow bridge that leads to no where.
If you want a preview of IGF 2017-2021, go back and read Stephen’s posts 2005-2009. Trump, like Bush, will do what he is going to do, and Stephen will find a way to lay blame at the feet of “progressive/liberal” gays and lesbians. That’s my guess, anyway, based on the last few days. “Blame Canada” is hard-wired into the homocon mind, I guess.
posted by MDBuck on
OK, I’ll bite. I supported Johnson, and I’ll tell you why:
– He was the only candidate who had actual, positive experience as a governmental chief executive. This is in contrast to Trump and Queen Hillary, who was the political equivalent of Blanche DuBois (living off the kindness of “hubby” and her crooked cronys for virtually all of her positions), and who spun taking votes and giving speeches into this vast reservoir of “experience.”
– He has a far better record of support for gay rights than Trump (who, as with most things, is all over the map) and Queen Hillary, who: 1) supported DOMA; 2) supported DADT; 3) opposed gay marriage until three short years ago (right up until the polls started to shift in our favor – what a coincidence!). As I told all my friends supporting her, if you honestly think she wouldn’t have stabbed us in the backs (again) if the polls changed, I have some fabulous beachfront property in Kansas I know you’d LOVE.
– And, yes, if it’s a choice between an egotistical, incompetent narcissist who has never even been a town mayor; a hopelessly corrupt, terminally incompetent, pathologically lying harpie who has never even been a town mayor; or a nice, but somewhat incompetent guy who at least has solid governmental chief executive experience, I’ll choose door #3 every time.
And I continue to remain deeply puzzled as to why if you don’t like Stephen’s postings, you continue to post here…
posted by JohnInCA on
No one said that there weren’t reasons to support Johnson on his own merits.
What was said was that Mr. Miller didn’t support Johnson on his own merits, and was just lodging a protest vote.
posted by TJ on
The LCR sang a very similar song about the Bush administration.
Frankly, It sometimes seems like some people in the LCR and the HRC want us to subsize their swanky, hoity-toiey cocktail parties.
posted by TJ on
lets deal in facts;
Trump initially expressed some support for transgender people, before backtracking.
At least one openly gay employee at a Trump golf courses said that he was harassed. Trump backtracked on support for civil rights legislation.
His preferred justice is Justice Scalia – who opposed marriage equality as well as privacy rights and the equal protection/voting rights Romer decision.
Trump pledges to abolish executive orders – like the ones protecting LGBT people.
He wants to abolish Obamacare and that is going to mean quite a few LGBT people will not have access to health care.
posted by Lori Heine on
The hysteria over Trump’s election is absurdly over-the-top. It’s making a lot of people look ridiculous. At first it was mildly entertaining. Now it’s just getting annoying.
There’s a very instructive chill-pill in the Huffington Post. Yes — Huffpo! A source of information officially approved for those inside the bubble. Our self-appointed gatekeepers give us their permission to read it!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gays-trump-is-not-going-to-take-away-your-rights_us_5823d2e0e4b0334571e0a674?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The hysteria over Trump’s election is absurdly over-the-top.
I agree, as do many on the left who have attempted to bring reason into the mix (see, for example, “Freedom to Marry Founder Evan Wolfson on Results of 2016 Election”, November 9, 2016).
There’s a very instructive chill-pill in the Huffington Post. Yes — Huffpo! A source of information officially approved for those inside the bubble. Our self-appointed gatekeepers give us their permission to read it!
To put the article in perspective, Chad Felix Greene is a “Gay Conservative”, and he posts frequently on Huffington’s “Contributor Platform”. That’s a good thing (Huffington, unlike many media outlets both left and right, publishes opposing views) but I wouldn’t make too much of the fact that Greene’s post appears on the Huffington “Contributor Platform”. Huffington publishes quite a bit from conservative gays/lesbians, including Greene.
The article you cite (“LGBTQ Community: Trump Is Not Going To Take Away Your Rights”, November 9, 2016) may be instructive, but it is by no means a complete or balanced view.
The article (like a lot of which we’ve seen on IGF recently) makes much of Trump’s “personal tolerance” but ignores positions he has taken inconvenient issues, mentions Trump’s “supportive” statements, such as Trump’s initial statements opposing North Carolina’s “bathroom bill”, but ignores later statements reversing his position, and so on.
Let me raise one issue that Greene ignores — Executive Orders.
I select that issue for several reasons. First, action on the EO’s will take almost certainly take place early in his administration. Second, action on the EO’s is one of the few items in Donald J. Trump’s Contract with Voters that Trump can act on without Congressional, departmental or judicial review/action. Third, action on the EO’s will provide an insight into the competing forces within the administration that will come to bear on LGBT issues. Fourth, action on the EO’s is a relatively straightforward matter to understand. Fifth, rescinding a number of the EO’s (specifically those relating to federal contractor employment non-discrimination) will pit Trump’s “personal tolerant” instincts against the political positions of conservative Christians, no-regulation libertarians and other competing interests.
Taking all that into consideration, I think that what Trump does with respect to the EO’s protecting gays/lesbians will give us a fair indication of the direction we can expect from the Trump administration on LGBT issues.
Trump has made much of the fact that he intends to rescind the Obama administration’s EO’s on his first day in office (to quote the DJT Contract with Voters: “Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following … actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law: FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.“). Trump made the point at just about every campaign rally, to much applause and ballyhoo from his supporters, and, although (to my knowledge, anyway) he made no specific mention of EO’s protecting gays/lesbians with respect to federal contractor employment, medical care and so on, his campaign issued several statements clarifying that those EO’s were included.
So that’s the pledge and the background.
My guess is that Trump will keep the pledge, and that by close of business on January 21, 2017, the protections now existing with respect to federal contractor employment, equal access to medical care/visitation by married gay/lesbian couples, and so on, will be history.
I think Trump will keep the pledge with respect to those EO’s because the EO’s are targeted by a strong combination of forces within the Trump administration — conservative Christians, Thiel libertarians, Alt-Right adherents, and no-business-regulation Republicans.
Mike Pence, Tony Perkins, Peter Theil, Steve Bannon and Republican Congressional leaders are all singing from the hymnal on this issue, and I don’t see any significant voices being raised in opposition from within the Trump campaign. That’s not to say that there are no such opposing voices (LCR has “contacts with the Trump transition team, for example, and may be “quietly working” to preserve the EO’s), but only that those voices are not being heard outside the Trump transition team.
I also think that Trump will keep the pledge because not keeping the pledge — wiping the slate clean — would be a betrayal of a oft-stated campaign promise and would be seen as a betrayal by his base supporters, extracting a cost that Trump is not likely to want to pay on his first day in office, even though he may be “personally tolerant” toward gays and lesbians.
And, last but not least, picking and choosing among the EO’s is not consistent with Trump’s personality. Trump’s entire history suggests that he is not prone to nuance.
So, the bottom line is that I think that Greene’s thesis (“Trump Is Not Going To Take Away Your Rights”) will be proven wrong on January 20 or January 21. We’ll see if I’m right. I hope I’m not.
posted by Doug on
Senator Graham is now pushing Ted Cruz for the Supreme Count. That will certainly advance LGBT rights don’t you think?
posted by Jorge on
Sounds more like a ploy to get rid of one of his enemies after his Trump “bullet to the head” headache to me.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Senator Graham is now pushing Ted Cruz for the Supreme Count. That will certainly advance LGBT rights don’t you think?
Not a single judge on Trump’s list is going to advance LGBT rights.
Depending on the timing of Justice Breyer’s, Justice Ginsburg’s, and Justice Kennedy’s departure from the Court, we are probably going to have to with the reality that the Court is likely to severely curtail the privacy, equal dignity and equal protection case lines at the heart of Roe, Lawrence and Obergefell, and live with that reality for 15-20 years.
We have more immediate concerns, though. Although I’m convinced that the First Amendment Defense Act will not withstand Constitutional scrutiny so long as Kennedy remains the swing vote, we are going to have to fight down a large number of bills sanctioning government and private discrimination against gays and lesbians under the name of religious freedom, work at state and local levels to enact non-discrimination laws and ordinances, and so across the board.
We have been living in a relatively benign legal/political environment for the last eight years, and those days are over. We’ll just have to work our way through this, yet again.
posted by Jorge on
That last effort was a bust, pure and simple. The Republican Party went from bad to worse during the Bush years.
Maybe I’m imagining things, but homocon gushing over Trump sounds a lot like the homocon gushing over Bush.
Well, I agree with one of those statements.
But I would like to take the opportunity to thank you, Tom, for your laser-like focus on policy in trying to plot out what Donald Trump would actually do as president. This has allowed me to recognize earlier the need to speak with a certain clarity on what needs to happen now. With political correctness being given a spanking, it is time to propose policy and action.
Trying to overturn Obergefell is number five on my list. Ending Obama’s executive orders and dropping the lawsuits and lawsuit threats against schools is number three. Matters of tone and righting the wrongs that have hurt the most people should decide the order of these policy ideas.
I’m glad my two favorite Never Trump figures (Linda Chavez and Lindsey Graham) have also recognized the need to move aggressively and propose their preferred platforms. Effective governance in this country is not a winner-takes-all thing, as demonstrated by this election’s rejection of Obamacare alongside Trump’s proposal to keep the pre-existing condition coverage requirement. That means it is time to ante up for some influence over the outcome.
Trump initially expressed some support for transgender people, before backtracking.
Huh?
And I say this as someone who has followed the election very closely: huh?
posted by Lori Heine on
Trump permitted Caitlyn Jenner to use the women’s restroom at one of his casinos. That was big of him, but I don’t remember hearing that he’s done anything else for transgenders.
You touch on a very important point: “Effective governance in this country is not a winner-takes-all thing, as demonstrated by this election’s rejection of Obamacare alongside Trump’s proposal to keep the pre-existing condition coverage requirement. That means it is time to ante up for some influence over the outcome.”
And you’re right about that. This is not a game. It is an ongoing process.
Both of the two major parties are (or at least are supposed to be) broad coalitions of varied interests, in a somewhat-uneasy alliance with one another for the sake of achieving broad goals.
I have surveyed both sides, and for some time. The GOP–and the right in general–is very broad, and contains a lot of competing groups and interests. The Democrats have permitted themselves to become a little club, and is monochrome–and monotone. Hence the nomination of Hillary Clinton, even though she has always basically functioned like the very worst sort of conservative Republican. The leftist droids passively permitted her to become the standard-bearer for the entire movement.
Post-election most especially, my response to the Democrats, and to the entire left, is one of boredom and disgust. The predominant attitude among libertarians is to keep one foot in each camp. I can no longer, in good conscience, do that.
I’ll stick with the right from now on. The left in this country is effectively dead, and as it rots, it’s harming the entire nation.
It isn’t hard to see why so many (notably not all, but many) of the left-leaning commenters here try to oversimplify the political right. The left is monochrome and monotone. They live (albeit by choice) in a monochrome and monotone world.
They also want their political change with a side of fries. It can’t happen fast enough to be real for them. Too bad for them. That’s how adulthood works.
posted by Jorge on
Trump permitted Caitlyn Jenner to use the women’s restroom at one of his casinos. That was big of him, but I don’t remember hearing that he’s done anything else for transgenders.
Well, now, that’s a little more like it.
Post-election most especially, my response to the Democrats, and to the entire left, is one of boredom and disgust. The predominant attitude among libertarians is to keep one foot in each camp. I can no longer, in good conscience, do that.
I’ll stick with the right from now on. The left in this country is effectively dead, and as it rots, it’s harming the entire nation.
*Jaw drops.*
I realize I’ve read many stories about ostensibly liberal-to-moderate people making the decision to vote for Donald Trump even though they can make the case against them blind, and yet you still surprised me. I thought you would have had an easy enough time wrestling with the left.
posted by Lori Heine on
Well, there’s just no point. Real progressives would have had all their meltdowns and tantrums after Clinton stole the primary from Bernie Sanders. That they wanted ’til now–when there has since been verification of skulduggery in the Dem primary–shows their fraudulence.
The American Left has become a club for weak, insecure and ignorant people who want to strike poses and stroke themselves. At least there’s some real energy on the Right. There are divisions there because there are genuine principles there.
Nobody on the Right give a rat’s behind what leftists think about anything. The Left is doing absolutely nothing to change anything that’s going on over on the other side of the spectrum.
Jorge, I think you understood that a long time ago. I’m a slower study.