Let’s talk about the Log Cabin Republicans. They’re the group of LGBTQ+ people who are Republicans, which in itself might be acceptable, but they now also support Donald Trump for president, which is dangerous. You can read many things into why they support Trump. Are they trying to assimilate? Do they have self hate? Do they envy him and his wealth? Are they trying to hustle themselves to a job in the White House? Whatever the point is, it’s sad and pitifully shameful.
Aside from being supportive of Trump, Log Cabin Republicans are fully supportive of the Republican Party. Their support has led to more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ laws that have been passed and proposed around the country, all by Republicans, including the Don’t Say Gay laws. That’s right. Log Cabin Republicans are responsible for Don’t Say Gay.
Before we get into Trump, I should give my view on the current status of anyone who considers themselves a Log Cabin Republican. To me, they are similar to the many Jews who refused to appreciate what facism was and refused to say or do anything against it before WWII. Many of those people died in ghettos in cities like Warsaw, or they were shipped to and died in concentration camps. But actually, Log Cabin Republicans are more like the people in France that welcomed the Nazis and cooperated with them. So in my eyes, Log Cabin members are either blind or collaborators in our oppression.
You might be surprised to know that this is not new. It happened before within our community. George W. Bush came up with a strategy to win re-election. That strategy was to have the Republican Party have a stance on its official platform to outlaw gay marriage. In order to do that, they would get as many anti-gay marriage bills on the ballot in as many states as possible, so Bush could promote opposing marriage equality at all his campaign stops. The chairman of the Republican Party at the time was a man named Ken Mehlman, a closeted gay man. Those antigay speeches, many hateful and full of stereotypes by Bush and numerous other Republicans, came from the campaign and Republican Party. Yes, a gay man was responsible for the antigay push in the 2004 election. At the time, I stated that those Republicans had blood on their hands, since I knew the effect it would have on LGBTQ+ youth.
Mehlman eventually came out, made a sort of apology and has tried to contribute and make up or erase the harm he did to our community. So why connect the two?
Everything we are hearing today from Trump and Republicans is by far worse than how Ronald Reagan ignored HIV/AIDS or how George W. Bush stood in the doorway of our marriages. In fact, you can hear Trump uttering Nazi buzzwords and actions.
He calls those who are opposed to him as vermin and says they need to safeguard the blood of the country. He wants to use the Department of Justice to go after his opponents and enact the Insurrection Act when elected, which would put the military in our streets, similar to the SS under Hitler. The media needs to stop referring to these actions as “right wing” and call them what they are: outright facism.
So why mention Ken Mehlman? Maybe since he was a Log Cabin believer, he can understand the minds of those in the Log Cabin Republicans today. Maybe he can begin to speak to them on a level they may understand. In fact, it’s time for an LGBTQ+ Republican group to endorse anyone but Trump. If you are LGBTQ+ or an ally and thinking of supporting Trump, I have no respect for you. I’m willing to give equal space to a Log Cabin member to refute this, but as we’ve discovered, most don’t like to be public since they are afraid of the shame they’ll receive. Shame that is absolutely deserved.