The “D” in this title has a double meaning: Damn Republicans, and vote straight Democrat, up and down that ballot.
Here’s the skinny. If a Republican refuses to address your community and its issues, and thus wants to keep you invisible, then he or she should be invisible to us when you go into that voting booth.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Vote like your life, job and home depend on it, because they really do.
The simple fact is that Donald Trump stands next to and shakes hands with the evangelicals who helped write the “Kill the Gays” legislation in Uganda. That’s right, Trump hailed the endorsement of people who want to kill you and me. These are our lives we are talking about.
Trump will not support the Equality Act in Congress, which would protect you from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, among other areas. The same is true in Pennsylvania with Sen. Pat Toomey. The same is also true with the Republican candidates for state Treasurer, Auditor General, Attorney General and all the Republican candidates for Congress, whose silence on the issue suggests their opposition to the Equality Act. Vote them out. You can do that by voting straight Democrat.
No Republican who wants our vote should want to keep us from achieving equality. And let me break this down to something we can all appreciate. Not one of the Republicans I mentioned supports marriage equality. And guess what? The Senate will play a role in determining the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, which could, depending on who is appointed, roll back marriage equality. Are you married, or do you hope to be some day? If so, you had better not vote for a Republican.
This is not an anti-Republican column. It is anti-current Republicans who refuse to answer to our community like they do others. They look down on us and believe we do not matter. It’s up to you to show them otherwise, and hope that they learn the lesson and start taking the advice handed out to them by other proud LGBT Republicans.
But until they do, vote with pride and vote for those who will uphold your rights and values.