Annals of the One True Party

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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.

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Political Expediency

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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.

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A Few GOP Convention Reflections

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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.

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Political Disagreement and Demonization

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On Donald Trump’s selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, the Washington Post reports:

Clinton backers criticized Pence as a social warrior. Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights advocacy group, called him “the face of anti-LGBTQ hate in America.”

The governor, Griffin said, “has made attacking the rights and dignity of LGBT people a cornerstone of his political career — not just a part, but a defining part of his career.”

Pence’s gubernatorial tenure has been marked by a law he signed last year that could have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay people — sparking a national firestorm and a backlash from the business and — professional-sports communities that forced Pence to revise the statute.

A bit of perspective here. Griffin is a long-time personal and professional associate of the Clintons, a hyperpartisan who sees his role as funneling LGBT labor, votes and dollars to the Democratic party.

Pence is a social conservative, to be sure. But in Griffin’s view and that of the LGBT establishment, any disagreement with the left-progressive LGBT agenda makes you a ripe target for demonization. This is important, because it suggests that there can be no legitimate disagreement on the competing rights of gay legal equality and individual religious freedom.

The LGBT establishment and liberal media can put all the scare quotes they want around “religious liberty”—the way that social conservatives used to (and sometimes still do) put scare quotes around “gay marriage.” That doesn’t overcome the inconvenient truth that, in America, individuals do (or at least should) have the right not to be compelled by the state to engage in activities that violate their religious faith. And claims by the liberal left that such faith is wrongheaded does not (or should not) rob believers of that right.

Competing rights, in a constitutional system, are not easy to reconcile, and there will always be conflict around them. Demonizing those on the other side—the default position of the progressive left—only makes clear who the haters are, and, increasingly, it’s usually not the social conservatives.

That said, the Indiana religious freedom bill was, in my view, poorly constructed. Legislation to protect the rights of small business owners not to be compelled to provide creative services for same-sex weddings should not single out gay people as a class for whom discrimination is generally permissible. I don’t believe that was the intent of the legislation, but its supporters left themselves vulnerable to that interpretation.

On the wider issue of the 2016 presidential campaign, I’ve made it clear that I’m supporting the Libertarian party ticket of former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and his vice presidential running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld—not because I have any illusions that they’ll win, or even because I agree with them on every issue (I don’t), but because I think supporting third parties whose views mostly align with your own may eventually have a constructive effect on the two major parties, if you believe (as I do) that both have gone seriously astray.

I see Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as untenable candidates, for different reasons. And sure, if LGBT rights is your predominant interest and you feel it is absolutely vital to ensure that the government force owners of small bakeries and independent wedding planners to provide their services to same-sex weddings (because, you know, “Jim Crow”), then of course you’ll be behind Clinton.

But while I find Trump’s nativist appeals and economic nationalism wrongheaded, and his style far beneath the dignity of the presidency, I think Clinton’s foreign policy misjudgments as Secretary of State (especially as regards Libya), her grossly misguided handling of classified e-mails and lying about it, her providing favors for Clinton Foundation donations, her pandering to the teachers unions in opposing vitally necessary public education reforms, and now her championing of the worst ideas of Bernie Sanders as regards entitlement expansion, all make her unacceptable.

I’d like the Democratic party to move back to the center on economic issues, and for the GOP to let go of its opposition to gay legal equality. I support reasonable restrictions on late-term abortions, especially partial birth abortion which seems to me little different from infanticide. Also, I don’t think the federal government should be using taxpayer money to pay for abortion, which a great many taxpayers view as the taking of human life.

And I don’t have a problem with allowing independent service providers to turn down gigs involving same-sex weddings if, in their view, to take those assignments would violate their religious faith (civil servants, as government employees, are different).

I’m sure that, in Chad Griffin’s view, that makes me a “hater.”

More. Walter Olson tweets about Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Pence backed along with other social conservatives:

Reminder: Indiana RFRA law had fairly moderate content, but sank in part b/c it was seen as pet project of so-con hard-liners around Pence.

It all brings to mind Chris Bull and John Gallagher’s book on the culture wars of the ‘90s, Perfect Enemies, in which they observed: “As some leaders on both sides have discovered, it is easiest to raise money when your opponent is demonized out of all recognition.”

Which, of course, takes us to Everyone I don’t like is Hitler—demonstrated here and elsewhere—and Why everyone we don’t like is not.

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GOP Platform Goes Back to the Past

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Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T. Angelo writes:

…the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history. Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of “pray the gay away” — it’s all in there. … When given a chance to follow the lead of our presumptive presidential nominee and reach out to the LGBT community in the wake of the awful terrorist massacre in Orlando on the gay nightclub Pulse, the Platform Committee said NO.

The committee was stacked with social conservatives, a large number of whom were pledged to Ted Cruz. Nevertheless, LCR remains committed to “take back the Party,” and it will happen, but not this year. As Guy Benson tweets, “…that is where the party remains today, even as many GOP-leaning voters now favor SSM, especially among younger demos…”

From The Hill:

The majority of the panel was made up of hard-line social conservatives such as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. Perkins and other social conservatives on the panel had a strong enough majority to push through the bulk of the measures they sought.

But the Perkins wing was met with vocal opposition from Annie Dickerson, an adviser to billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer, who is a proponent of same-sex marriage and other issues championed by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Dickerson fumed as her socially liberal proposals went down and the socially conservative measures she opposed sailed through the subcommittee.

The Federalist argues that some of the reaction is exaggerated:

Others also reported that Republicans had scrubbed and stripped “LGBT language” from a plank dealing with Islamic terrorism, even though the GOP had stripped any mention of all individual groups, including Christians, Jews, and women. That certainly gives the news a different context.

Some reporters seem to be creating the impression (or maybe they believe) that conservatives are so homophobic they’re unwilling to accept the notion that radical Islam targets gays, even after Orlando. This is absurd and willfully misleading. Most conservatives have gone out of their way to point out that Islamism is genuinely and violently homophobic. It is often liberals who refuse to acknowledge that radical Islamic terrorism has a purpose and that it is what drove someone to specifically target a gay nightclub.

And let’s recall that there is much destructive nonsense of the leftist variety in the Democratic platform as well. Both parties now use these quadrennial declarations to placate their most ideologically hardcore activists, expecting (and hoping) that the general public won’t take much notice. That doesn’t excuse these expressions of extremism, it just explains what’s going on.

A final point. On another issue dealing with sexuality. the GOP platform takes aim at porn. David Boaz writes about the anti-porn plank:

A Republican National Convention platform committee has declared pornography “a public health crisis.” Committee members don’t seem to know what “public health” means.

I’ll just mention than while not all feminists see pornography as a threat to society, anti-porn feminists find themselves oddly aligned with religious right social conservatives on this matter—even though the increased availability of pornography tracks with declining statistics for violent rape.

More. The two-party system:

New York Times: Emerging Republican Platform Goes Far to the Right.

Washington Post: Democrats shift to the left in this past weekend’s platform fight.

Furthermore. Another Washington Post report, While Trump stays out of it, GOP platform tacks to the right on gay rights, has some interesting observations:

Chris Barron, a gay conservative strategist, said the platform is a document with few teeth. …

“Platform fights are like the fourth game of an NFL pre-season — the stars don’t play, the games don’t count, and if you win, it’s irrelevant,” said Barron….

“Every four years the nominees make it clear that they don’t speak for the platform,” he said. “They speak for themselves. We have the most pro-gay nominee of the Republican Party ever in Donald Trump, and that’s what matters.”

Maybe, or maybe a bit of “Who wanted to be invited to your party anyway.”

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Cop Lives Matter

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After the horrific events in Dallas, where at least five police officers were killed and seven more wounded at a Black Lives Matter protest against police shootings last week of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, I’m bumping up the discussion of whether LGBT activists groups and pride march organizers should work with, and give in to the demands of, Black Lives Matter anti-police activists.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), in particular, has sought to align itself with Black Lives Matter despite BLM’s incendiary denunciations of police officers—last year, the New York Post reported on the deadly rhetoric of the anti-cop movement, with activists calling for the murder of police officers:

“What do we want?” the crowd roared while marching in Manhattan last December. Without missing a beat, the protesters answered their own question: “Dead cops.”

Here’s the addendum I had put at the end of the prior post:
—————-
Black Lives Matter Toronto staged a sit-in during the city’s July 2 Pride march, halting the procession for 30 minutes before organizers signed a list of demands, including “A commitment to increase representation among Pride Toronto staffing/hiring, prioritizing black trans women” among others, and, more ominously, “Removal of police floats in the pride marches/parades.”

Global News reports that despite the pledge to “purge the parade of police marchers,” that “Officers will still be present to enforce security at future parades.”

Via The Star, “Police also wouldn’t be allowed to have booths at future Pride celebrations, if the demands are met.” Inclusion!

Via Walter Olson:

If you thought blackmailing gays was a thing of the past, you didn’t reckon with BLM. … It so typifies 2016 that the ones to shut down a gay pride parade would be on the Left, and that no one would tell them off.

And from James Kirchick:

Gay groups honored Black Lives Matter with prominent roles at their pride events, and Black Lives Matter returned the favor by hijacking those events to further their own anti-cop agendas. Condemning the police as an inherently racist, homophobic institution is not only false and counterproductive, it denigrates the many LGBT officers whose participation in these festivities would be annulled if the activists got their way.

—————-
Embracing BLM was never a good idea. But as I’ve noted before, now that gay legal equality in the U.S. has been achieved, LGBT left-progressive activists are looking for new causes, and recruiting LGBT battalions in the fight for the progressive agenda is increasingly their mission.

More. Conservative twitter-curation website twitchy looks at tweets by Sally Kohn, liberal political commentator and out lesbian, following the Dallas murders: NOW Sally Kohn doesn’t want an entire group blamed for the actions of a few?

FurtherMore. Addressing the jihadist-driven mass murder of gay people in Orlando, Black Lives Matter’s website says “Homegrown terror is the product of a long history of colonialism…white supremacy and capitalism, which deforms the spirit and fuels interpersonal violence.” Oh.

Final word. Could have seen this coming: Black Lives Matter blindsides Jewish supporters with anti-Israel platform.

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Unintended Consequences

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In a Washington Blade column, Mark Lee points out that Gay groups taking on gun issues could backfire:

Do gay activists and organizations run the risk of fracturing equality efforts and the continuing support among constituents for their work by engaging on other political issues, especially when many potential topics enjoy much less than universal, or even broad, support?

Well, yes. But they see their mission as enlisting LGBT brigades to fight for the progressive agenda.

Also on the activists front, the Washington Post reports that LGBT-friendly Asheville feels the impact of the ‘bathroom bill’ boycotts. Gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses in North Carolina are feeling the pain in places that are overwhelmingly liberal like Asheville, and in Charlotte where the transgender-inclusive bill was passed (triggering the state legislature to overturn it and decree that for public schools and government buildings people must use restrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates—leading to the calls to boycott businesses in the state).

If you’re gay or gay-supportive, it’s probably the gay and gay-supportive businesses for whom you’d be a likely customer. Those are the ones you’re now being told to boycott so as to punish North Carolina, in a collective-guilt sense.

Activism can be necessary and productive in the fight for civil rights and equality before the law. It can also be, and increasingly seems to be, about signaling self-righteousness and political correctness.

Relatedly, Cathy Young on feminist male-bashing:

Male faults are stated as sweeping condemnations; objecting to such generalizations is taken as a sign of complicity. Meanwhile, similar indictments of women would be considered grossly misogynistic.

This gender antagonism does nothing to advance the unfinished business of equality. If anything, the fixation on men behaving badly is a distraction from more fundamental issues, such as changes in the workplace to promote work-life balance.

It’s all about one-upping each other on the ideological purity scale.

More. Black Lives Matter Toronto staged a sit-in during the city’s Pride march, halting the procession for 30 minutes before organizers signed a list of demands, including “A commitment to increase representation among Pride Toronto staffing/hiring, prioritizing black trans women” among others, and, more ominously, “Removal of police floats in the pride marches/parades.”

Global News reports that despite the pledge to “purge the parade of police marchers,” that “Officers will still be present to enforce security at future parades.”

Via The Star, “Police also wouldn’t be allowed to have booths at future Pride celebrations, if the demands are met.” Inclusion!

Furthermore. Via Walter Olson:

If you thought blackmailing gays was a thing of the past, you didn’t reckon with BLM. … It so typifies 2016 that the ones to shut down a gay pride parade would be on the Left, and that no one would tell them off.

And from James Kirchick:

Gay groups honored Black Lives Matter with prominent roles at their pride events, and Black Lives Matter returned the favor by hijacking those events to further their own anti-cop agendas. Condemning the police as an inherently racist, homophobic institution is not only false and counterproductive, it denigrates the many LGBT officers whose participation in these festivities would be annulled if the activists got their way.

Take back Gay Pride from the left-progressive haters, in NYC and Toronto!

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Exclusionary Pride

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On Sunday, the NYC LGBT Pride March, dedicated to victims of the Orlando terror attack, prominently featured a banner that declared “Republican Hate Kills.”

As HypeLine reports, “a large group from the LGBT community led part of the parade with a banner reading ‘Republican Hate Kills’ in the wake of the Orlando night club shooting.” The mainstream and LGBT media chose to ignore this in their coverage despite the image being widely circulated on the twitterverse. But it seems Gays Against Guns was the group behind the banner.

[Direct action group Queer Nation, a dominant player on the city’s activist scene, says it was “honored to join Gays Against Guns” in the Pride march, and that “Gilbert Baker supplied the vibrant banners reading ‘Gays Against Guns’ and ‘Republican Hate Kills.’” Baker is credited as the creator of the Rainbow Flag and a member of Queer Nation. Blogger joemygod further describes Baker as “a major force with Queer Nation here in New York City.”]

A few inconvenient truths: the mass murder in Orlando was committed by a radicalized Muslim jihadist who was also a registered Democrat, and who told friends he was supporting Hillary Clinton? No matter, if the big lie serves the narrative, then it’s all good, right?

If I were a gay Republican who showed up to march, I may have just left.

Hillary Clinton marched for a few highly publicized blocks then departed. That’s fine, But the progressives who organize Pride and run the LGBT political movement have made it crystal clear that Republicans are not welcome.

That’s the message being sent to the growing number of younger Republicans and conservatives who are, like their generational cohort, gay friendly. As I’ve often said, the worst nightmare of LGBT progressives is a GOP that ceases to be anti-gay, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stop that from happening.

LGBT progressives’ modus operandi is to go all out to defeat pro-gay and openly gay Republicans, with any lies at their disposal, as they did when San Diego’s Carol DeMaio ran for mayor in 2012, about which James Kirchcik noted:

…a group deceptively named “Conservatives for Gay Rights Supporting Carl DeMaio for Mayor 2012”—paid for “push poll” robocalls in which DeMaio’s homosexuality was put front and center. The group also paid for pamphlets featuring pictures of DeMaio hugging another man and standing alongside a drag queen, stating, “We conservatives know that liberty means that someone can pick a partner of their choice. We commend Carl on his conservative policies and exercising his liberties.”

Not until after the election—ultimately won by former Democratic Congressman Bob Filner, who resigned last August facing multiple accusations of sexual harassment—was it revealed that Democratic supporters of Filner had funded the shadowy group.

During the campaign, DeMaio, then a San Diego city council member, was greeted with boos while marching in the city’s gay pride celebration with his partner—a common occurrence for GOP candidates and officeholders who attend pride events that aren’t organized and hosted by gay Republicans.

And even worse were the now-verified slanders against DeMaio when he ran for Congress in 2014, which a court found “definitely played a role” in DeMaio’s defeat.

Meanwhile, South Carolina has elected its first openly gay legislator, a Republican who says the party in his conservative, southern state is growing more inclusive.

Oh, the pain that this must be causing LGBT progressives.

More. Via Jihadwatch: Islamic State throws four gay men off rooftop, taunts gays with photos of murders bearing #LoveWins hashtag. Gay Pride celebrators ignore the threat of jihadists and blame Republicans. (warning: graphic photo).

Furthermore. An example of inclusive pride. An email I received says, “Join the DC Log Cabin Republicans for our end of Pride Month Social. … We encourage our members and supporters to bring friends to this event—conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, gay,straight, transgendered, or bi—because tonight we celebrate LGBT PRIDE and how together we make advancements for our community as a whole.”

Imagine if they had, instead, said “Democrat Hate Kills.”

Parting observation. No, the fact that QN and the march organizers who gave it prominence framed their “Republican Hate Kills” message, if you did some digging into background, as a critique of those who defend Second Amendment rights is a rather thin reed to legitimatize the banner. Despite the pretext, the message came through loud and clear, and it was received as intended.

On the matter of guns, Scott Adams has a pertinent observation on Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA:

On average, Democrats (that’s my team) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense. … So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles.

Indeed. And check out David Kopel’s The history of LGBT gun-rights litigation, on “the past and present of gay rights activism for the Second Amendment rights of sexual minorities and of all other Americans.”

Also, Pink Pistols besieged with new members.

Obviously, people of good faith can disagree about gun rights, but if you think opposing restrictive gun control is “hate,” then look in the mirror to see the real hater.

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A Widening Political Divide

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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.

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The Great Denial

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Douglas Murray writes, Most Western Gays Remain in Denial about Islam:

Most gay spokespeople continue to think that the political Right is the sole locale from which anti-gay sentiment can come. … But Pat Robertson just wanted to stop gays from marrying. He didn’t call for people to throw us off high buildings. … Despite the growing awareness that this was precisely what the Islamists wanted, gay “spokespeople,” publications, and groups went through the 2000s sharing the old leftish delusions.”

And they still do.

And from Warren J. Blumenfeld, How do we stop Islamic militants’ attacks on LGBT people? Letting go of the delusions of progressive cultural relativism might be a good start.

And then there’s this.

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