IGF CultureWatch

The LGBT-left blog Towleroad posted on LGBT Advocates Steam Over One-Sided ‘Washington Post’ Article on Hillary Clinton’s Gay Rights Record. I read the Washington Post article and thought it was ultimately a celebration of Clinton’s evolution, despite the promising— and certainly accurate—headline that “Hillary Clinton had the chance to make gay rights history. She refused.”

The Post article made clear that Clinton has now adopted a position of strong advocacy for LGBT rights within the context of the progressive agenda. But any criticism of Hillary, even pointing out her prior opposition to same-sex marriage and public acquiescence to the Defense of Marriage Act and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy, is anathema to the political operatives who helm the biggest LGBT lobbies, which are firmly joined at the hip to the Democratic party.

Remember, “Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.”

The Washington Blade reports Log Cabin continues to mull Trump endorsement, and David Boaz posts, “He’s wholly unfit for the presidency, he traffics in racial and religious scapegoating, but he’s not particularly antigay…. So what’s Log Cabin to do?”

And no, reports like this one, also in the Washington Blade, casting Trump as “anti-LGBT” for meeting with conservative evangelicals, at what must by definition be “an anti-LGBT event,” are engaging in falsification that’s, well, worthy of Donald Trump. LGBT progressives with bylines are just as scurrilous as the Hannity and Limbaugh gang on the other side.

On a more positive note, Rich Tafel and Ted Buerger look forward to how Creative Destruction Will Allow Republicans and Democrats to Rebuild After 2016, and conclude:

The irony is that, in the wake of Trump’s self-destruction, we Republicans may be more motivated to make that change, from which could rise a renewed, inclusive party of Lincoln. That is our opportunity.

If the party loyalists recognize that Ted Cruz opened the door for Donald Trump, than in the wake of Trump’s defeat there is indeed a possibility that the socially moderate message we heard from Jeb Bush and John Kasich could hold sway as the Republicans rebuild their party.

A good sign: Florida Gov. Scott: Same-sex marriage is ‘law of the land.’ “We need to figure out how to come together as a country,” he told Fox News. “[T]he Supreme Court has already made a decision. In my state, we’re focused on jobs.”

And the New York Times reports on Marco Rubio’s addressing Christian conservatives and telling them, “When it comes to our brothers and our sisters, our fellow Americans, our neighbors in the LGBT community, we should recognize,” he said, that American history “has been marred by discrimination against and rejection of gays and lesbians.”

More. Tafel and Buerger write of the two major parties and their presidential campaigns:

But Americans deserve better. Gallup polls now confirm that most Americans are “socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” As hopeful believers in the American dream, most Americans want a sustainable society based on innovation and opportunity, security and trust, private charity and public safety-net, inclusion and religious liberty, personal freedom and human dignity. That aspiration should be at the core of each political party. It is not.

Yes, inclusion and religious liberty are both core American values, although I can see LGBT progressives stamping their feet and shouting that “religious liberty” is nothing but code for discrimination (because, you know, God talk) that seeks to elevate individual conscience above compliance with the will of the state.

Furthermore. Progressives believe taxpayers should be forced to fund late-term abortions but that no taxpayer money should go toward grants allowing low-income students to attend religiously affiliated colleges that don’t support same-sex marriage.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, alarmed by signs that suggest GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is seeing a rise in support from the gay community, made the following declaration:

“That’s terrifying,” Booker told the Washington Examiner after the Democratic National Convention. “Donald Trump probably picked one of the most anti-gay vice presidential candidates we’ve had in a long time.”

Booker said Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., has been at the forefront of leading efforts he said unfairly discriminate against members of the LGBT community. The New Jersey senator went on to argue why he believes the Democratic Party is best for the gay community.

“Clearly we are the party of civil rights, worker’s rights, women’s rights and definitely gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights,” Booker said.

“Instanpundit” Glenn Reynolds picked up on this, and his readers share some interesting comments.

I’ve previously explained why, in my view, Mike Pence is being unfairly demonized and why, in America, people should not be compelled by the state to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings when to do so violates their religious convictions. But Booker’s comments are in keeping with the view of LGBT activists and media. This week, the Washington Blade was devoted almost exclusively to a celebration of all things Hillary while it’s been denouncing all things Trump, including commentary deploying the “f” word (as in “fascist”).

There is much to criticize about both presidential candidates, but for all his many bad positions, animus toward gay people is not a Trump hallmark. He is arguably the best GOP presidential nominee on “LGBTQ” issues we’ve seen, and far better than the party as a whole when it comes to LGBT inclusion.

Also this week, the Washington Post reports that Chelsea Clinton, appearing on a panel sponsored by Facebook and Glamour magazine, shared this bit of wisdom:

“I would just say urgently to every young woman, and, yes, every young man, um, every person who may not know their gender yet, or may have no gender identity — whatever you care about is at stake in this election,” she said….

The next day, she was the star guest at a Human Rights Campaign lunch where, the paper recounts, “She received several standing ovations in her nine-minute remarks.”

Recall that, despite no journalistic experience, NBC News paid Chelsea Clinton an annual salary of $600,000 to be a special correspondent, which included interviewing the Geico gecko, until she lost interest in that endeavor. But when you’re party royalty, and it’s the correct party, nothing is good enough.

Semi-related. David Frum, a moderate Republican who opposes Trump, looks at what liberals don’t understand about Trump’s popularity among his supporters. (No, they’re not backing him because they’re “fascists.”) It speaks to the widely shared perception among Trump voters that the system is rigged in favor of wealthy elites and government-entitled minorities—what others have termed the liberal “top-bottom coalition”—and how their daily experiences confirm that view.

GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence and Democratic veep nominee Tim Kaine have both altered their positions, and perhaps cut their consciences, to fit this year’s fashions. For instance, both have been supportive of multinational trade-promotion agreements. No more.

Looking at Kaine, the Washington Times reports that when he ran to be Virginia’s governor in 2005, he was against marriage equality and favored restrictions on abortion:

At the time he was a self-proclaimed pro-life “conservative” who openly quoted the Bible in his ads and checked off nearly every other box on conservatives’ wish list.

“The truth is, I cut taxes as mayor of Richmond. I’ll enforce the death penalty as governor, and I’m against same-sex marriage,” Mr. Kaine said in one of his ads. “I’m conservative on personal responsibility, character, family and the sanctity of life. These are my values, and that’s what I believe.”

And in a radio ad, cited here, Kaine said:

I oppose gay marriage, I support restrictions on abortion — no public funding and parental consent — and I’ve worked to pass a state law banning partial-birth abortion … [My opponent] played politics with abortion and as a result Virginia still has no ban. As governor, I’ll always put principle over politics and you’ll always know where I stand. That’s who I am and what I believe.

Nothing new here, of course, but it’s still interesting to see the gyrations that politicians are willing to make.

Defining himself as “conservative on…family and the sanctity of life” goes further than the positions against same-sex marriage that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama held at the time—they were always progressive on social issues, as a matter of self-branding.

Kaine has also just flip-flopped on the right to work without union membership (for it as Virginia governor, now against it).

Still, as this year’s veepstakes shows, maybe most politicians don’t believe anything except what will further their paths to power. Or they convince themselves that their old views were wrong and now they’re right, which just happens to be politically convenient at the present moment.

Donald Trump’s acceptance speech was full of the jingoistic bombast and wrong-headed policies on trade and immigration that prevent me from giving him my vote (I’m for the Johnson-Weld Libertarian party ticket). And the GOP platform, as previously discussed, was given over to hardcore social conservatives and the religious right, and consequently is awful on LGBT issues.

But I contend wholeheartedly that despite the platform committee’s antics on the sidelines, the Republican Convention represented a dramatic change from the past—and for the better—on LGBT issues, and failing to recognize that is simply partisan myopia. A quick recap (along with the consensus liberal and LGBT media assessment):

Ted Cruz: “Whether you are gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.”
(media assessment: code for discrimination)

Newt Gingrich: “If our enemies had their way, gays, lesbians and transgender citizens would be put to death as they are today in the Islamic State and Iran.”
(media assessment: absurd fear-mongering)

Peter Thiel: “Every American has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican, but most of all I am proud to be an American.”
(media assessment: sellout)

Donald Trump: “Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted our LGBTQ community. No good. And we’re going to stop it. As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”
(media assessment: pandering)

The liberal media and LGBT left-progressive establishment were, of course, dismissive—at best, window-dressing and all that. But Trump’s comments and Thiel’s remarks were a huge departure for the GOP.

The last openly gay Republican convention speaker, then-Rep Jim Kolbe of Arizona in 2000, didn’t mention being gay. Nevertheless, the Texas delegation staged a protest while he spoke, removing their hats, bowing their heads and publicly praying. Nothing like that happened this time, nor is it likely to ever happen again.

More. Donald Trump was never likely to pay much attention to a committee-drafted platform he didn’t control, and letting the social conservatives run riot with it was a sop to the evangelical-right delegates, many of whom (but not all) were initially pledged to Ted Cruz. But Cruz’s convention speech nonendorsement of Trump has made the bad blood between the two men even worse. On reflection, Trump’s outreach to “LGBTQ” voters was like his own nonendorsement of the platform planks opposing LGBT social acceptance and legal equality that the Cruzites had pushed through.

It quite likely, I believe, that if Trump were elected he would sign The Equality Act—the proposed federal law to include LGBT antidiscrimination provisions in the Civil Rights Act—should it reach his desk. I’m no fan of the measure on libertarian grounds, but it’s the top item on the political agenda of progressive LGBT activist groups. However, given their virulence toward Trump, I suspect if he wins they will act to keep that from happening.

Furthermore. Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr., a “Trumpian nonbeliever,” writes that Trump’s acceptance speech:

…was a masterful if lengthy exposition of his nationalist-Peronist viewpoint: America is a nation of lovely people of every creed, ethnicity and sexual orientation best by murderous illegal aliens, Islamic terrorists and the predatory trade practices of other countries.

I think that’s right (which is why I support Johnson-Weld). But it’s also right that the rejection of political gay-bashing by Trump throughout his campaign, and no mention at all of abortion in his convention speech, was a not-so-subtle repudiation of the platform committee’s hard-edged political-social conservatism. If Trump were elected, the platform in 2020, under his control, would likely be very different—especially since, as the Pew Research Center reports, 61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage.

Which may be why, at least in part, an extreme social conservative like Paul Mero has announced Trump has chased me from the GOP.

Scott Shackford writes at reason.com, GOP’s Overall Message to LGBTs: We Don’t Actually Want You Dead, Okay? While I’m generally a fan of Shackford’s often-astute analysis, I think Trump went beyond that in calling the LGBTQ victims in Orlando “wonderful Americans” and praising the convention audience for applauding that line. True, the GOP has set a low bar when it comes to LGBT equality, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss signs that it’s being raised.

The LGBTQ+ progressive left and gay libertarians, moderates on the center-right and economic conservatives have always had an uneasy alliance, but an alliance it was, around issues such as marriage equality (once the left got over its view that marriage was an oppressive, patriarchal, bourgeois institution) and equality under the law.

Now, in an era in which gays in the U.S. enjoy legal equality and broad (if not universal) social acceptance, that alliance is all but undone. And while all gay non-leftists are not supporting Donald Trump (count me among them, please), his campaign is highlighting that widening divide.

The Washington Examiner reports that:

…the presumptive Republican nominee went out of his way to recognize the gay and lesbian victims of the slaughter and frame his anti-terror approach as a signal of his commitment to gay rights.

“Our nation stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlando’s LGBT community,” Trump declared. He said the attacker’s decision to “execute gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation” was “an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity.”

And this:

“Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists to our country,” he said.

It’s a new take on Trump’s immigration politics, though combining support for immigration restrictions and gay rights has been more common in Europe, where Muslim arrivals have been perceived as threatening social liberalism.

That’s a message that will resonate with a swath of LGBT conservatives, and it enrages progressives. Witness this release from Get Equality (received via email):

LGBTQ Protestors Disrupt Donald Trump at Press Conference, Saying “Lies Equal Violence”

LGBTQ grassroots network GetEQUAL disrupted a press conference that followed a day-long meeting between Donald Trump and several hundred evangelical leaders. The disruption called attention to hate-mongering by both right-wing leaders and Trump — creating the atmosphere that led to last week’s massacre in Orlando — as well as the systemic violence that queer and trans people of color face every day. The disrupters chanted “Take responsibility for Orlando,” “Your hate is killing us,” and “Your lies are killing us” in the middle of the press conference.

The standard progressive trope, and one that now dominates college campuses, is that views disagreeing with progressivism are equal to violence and therefore must be silenced.

The fact that Trump, who for all his many failings has never demonstrated animus toward gay people, and evangelical Christians are responsible for the Islamic jihadist-inspired mass murder in Orlando and elsewhere, is simply repugnant.

And of course wildly hypocritical, since there are no protests from the left when Obama meets with anti-gay Muslim leaders.

The Libertarian Party has just nominated successful, two-term governors with reputations as being fiscally conservative, socially liberal, to be its presidential and vice-presidential candidates. With former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico at the head of the ticket, and former Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts in the vice presidential slot, the LP is in a position where it could, perhaps, become a force to be reckoned with.

Many disaffected Republicans can’t stomach the idea of voting for Trump, and a few Bernie supporters can’t stomach the idea of voting for Hillary (and some of them, especially the college kids, were never actually socialists but liked Sanders’ views on pot and could similarly be attracted to Johnson’s long-standing opposition to the drug war).

The Johnson-Weld ticket supports marriage equality. And, in a recent Facebook post, Johnson takes the position that under anti-discrimination laws a private business can’t discriminate against who it will serve, but “anti-discrimination laws do not, and cannot, abridge fundamental First Amendment rights.” I agree with that.

Many had hoped that the GOP would nominate a socially moderate former governor willing to put the party’s anti-LGBT culture-war past aside and move on, while stressing a commitment to fiscal responsibility and to limiting government over-reach. That, obviously, didn’t happen. So this year, in particular, the LP represents an alternative that’s worth considering.

While you can’t expect to get everything you want from candidates running for the highest offices in the land, the Johnson-Weld ticket comes pretty darn close.

Cruz was hoping the “bathroom issue” would make a difference in Indiana. But despite a final push, he lost big and then suspended his campaign.

Via Politico on why Cruz’s social conservative pandering fell flat in Indiana (and, really, most everywhere else):

The only problem with Cruz’s socially conservative message? The voters he has to win over [in Indiana] don’t like it. …

Today, vast swaths of the state’s Republican electorate, from Indianapolis to West Lafayette, have retreated from the culture wars. And like the 50s-era diner itself, Cruz’s dogged socially conservative message seems anachronistic—and perhaps a little tin-eared—to these fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republicans….

Along similar lines, Dave Weigel on why Cruz’s defeat in Indiana may also be the biggest electoral victory for transgender rights:

[Cruz] pummeled Donald Trump for supporting the rights of transgender people to use their adopted gender’s bathrooms. And then he lost in a landslide, and quit the presidential race.

I wish Kasich had competed in Indiana; the pact with Cruz was a bad idea.

On the other hand, hard to argue with Cruz’s takedown of Trump. If only they both could have lost!

More. “Many Republicans were surprised Mr. Cruz was the one in the large GOP field to wind up being Mr. Trump’s most formidable opponent,” the Wall Street Journal reports, noting:

The senator’s coalition never grew beyond a core group of dedicated social conservatives, leaving Mr. Trump to pick up support from voters who might have otherwise supported one of the other 14 Republicans who have ended their presidential campaigns.

Cruz’s social conservative bloc was large enough to make him the designated runner up in a crowded, diffuse field. But as the political power and popular appeal of the religious right wanes in the GOP, Cruz as the alternative meant votes going to Trump.

Furthermore. Via a Wall Street Journal editorial, A Cruz Postmortem:

Mr. Cruz’s pandering to the right also sent a signal to moderate and somewhat conservative Republicans that he didn’t need their support. Mr. Trump split the “very conservative” vote with Mr. Cruz but crushed the Senator among more moderate voters. That doomed Mr. Cruz in the East in particular, but also in Indiana.

The Texan’s lost opportunity was to expand his appeal beyond his most conservative base of support and coalesce mainstream Republicans. He never tried to break out of his factional ghetto, as if excoriating the establishment and transgender bathroom laws could motivate a majority to defeat Mr. Trump’s plurality.

The conservatives aghast at Mr. Trump should appreciate the irony that even as Mr. Cruz hoped to produce a new conservative era, he helped wreck the best chance for conservative reform in years.

Indeed. And the WSJ rightly points out the culpability of both Cruz “and his allies at the Heritage Foundation and the Mark Levin talk-radio right.”