Log Cabin Republicans are removing the T from their advocacy for gay and lesbian and bisexual citizens.
Ross Hemminger, president of Log Cabin Republicans, announced the change in an Aug. 20 column in Town Hall, a far-right online journal. The publication features other columns such as “Girls Just Want a Locker Room,” “A Quick Bible Study Vol. 334: What the Old Testament Says About Earthquakes,” “Is There Any Evil into Which Democrats Will Not Descend?” and “With Midterms Looming, GOP’s Christian Base Shrinking As Socialist Insurgency Roils Democratic Party.”
Ross Hemminger
“Fifty years ago next year, Log Cabin Republicans was founded on a simple conviction: That gay Americans who believe in limited government, individual liberty and equality deserve equal protection under the law and a voice inside the Republican Party,” Hemminger wrote. “From the start, Log Cabin Republicans grounded its advocacy in constitutional principles — equal protection, limited government and individual freedom.”
That expanded in 2015 to include transgender people under its umbrella of advocacy — “out of a belief that all adults should be allowed to pursue their own happiness, free of government interference, as long as it did not impede on the inalienable rights of others.”
But times have changed, Hemminger writes. “At the time, we did not believe that we would find ourselves where we are today. The transgender movement has ceased focusing on adults at all — nearly all of their efforts and those of their aligned special interest groups focus on minors. They push schools to teach radical gender ideology; they want biological men in women’s sports regardless of the consequences; perhaps most offensively, they support gender reassignment treatments for minors, often without the knowledge or consent of the parents, knowing full well these treatments are mostly irreversible.”
While he echoes common conservative talking points, his views are not supported by data.
“Their view of the gay community is based on today’s radical transgender activists with their unnecessary and discomfiting focus on America’s youth.”
And he believes the inordinate attention to transgender people is taking attention away from gay, lesbian and bisexual people: “The new era of gender identity politics is not the movement we supported and fought for. Gay men and women are losing public support across the country, and support for gay marriage and other once-widely accepted rights is eroding. Why? Because many voters today weren’t alive or cognizant of the politics of gay marriage winding its way through the courts and gaining ground in public opinion. Their view of the gay community is based on today’s radical transgender activists with their unnecessary and discomfiting focus on America’s youth.”
Therefore, Log Cabin Republicans will be an LGB organization, he explains.
“This decision does not change who can belong to Log Cabin Republicans. Membership remains open to all conservatives. We welcome all our allies in this mission and as participants in our organization. Our chapters will continue to welcome all allies and will operate in ways that best serve their membership.”
The Advocate reported a corresponding LGBTQ Democratic group criticized the Log Cabin Republicans’ reversal.
“The Log Cabin Republicans have completed their MAGAfication and fully caved to Trump’s wishes with an unprincipled and cowardly move that throws trans people under the bus to try to save their own skin,” National Stonewall Democrats President Jeremy Comeau said.
He warned abandoning transgender people is only the first step: “Anti-trans legislation was the opening move, not the whole game, and the same coalition is already going after marriage equality, adoption rights, and nondiscrimination protections. Burying your head in the sand doesn’t make you safe. It just means you don’t see what’s coming. LGB is on the chopping block too. It always was.”
In 2020, Donald Trump declared himself the “most pro-gay president in America.”
His record shows otherwise, and MAGA Republicans in Congress and in state legislatures have introduced hundreds of bills to restrict LGBTQ rights.