Is Vice President Mike Pence a closeted, deep-in-self-hate raging homo? Is that self-hate so intolerable for him that he’s become the commander in chief at the White House in pushing the most homophobic agenda since McCarthy’s un-American hearings in the 1950s and the George W. Bush anti gay-marriage reelection bid?
When they witness a rabid homophobe, many people in our community believe that they’re acting out due to their own sexuality issues. I’ve never subscribed to that point of view, but Mike Pence is about to change my position. Like you, I’ve heard the rumors that he went through conversion therapy, and that’s why his wife is almost attached to him at the dinner table, but I’m still not completely won over to this view as yet. But hey, I’m getting there.
In my years of activism, I’ve dealt with almost every kind of political being and their position, both pro and con, but never have I seen a man so full of hate trying to push an anti-LGBT agenda in almost every department in the federal government — as though it were personal.
Guess I could prove the point by listing all the anti-gay Republican elected officials who work against our community, but that list is longer than my column allows. But maybe a few to refresh your memory: The former Alabama Attorney General Troy King, former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, a gaggle of congressmen such as Mark Foley … and that would only be the beginning.
We know the homophobic push in the White House is driven by Pence since we’ve heard it in the president’s own words. Pence was the one who brought in some of the most homophobic people in the administration. Trump has no ideology, so he gave Pence the crumbs he wants for being his lap dog, and Trump also gets brownie points with his right-wing base.
Someone I’ve worked with worked for a while in the Trump White House, so I asked him about my theory. All he would do was roll his eyes.
There was a “Saturday Night Live” joke that went like this: Donald Trump looking around after everyone in a room talks about all his misdeeds, and they suggest that he might be impeached. Trump responds, “That’s why I picked Mike Pence as my vice president; he’s my insurance policy.”
Jokes aside, insurance doesn’t matter. Either way, the LGBT community is screwed.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. You can follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MarkSegalPGN or Twitter at https://twitter.com/PhilaGayNews.