I generally find “single issue voting” to be a reprehensible practice by citizens who are responsible for selecting a leader who shares the responsibility of the safety and prosperity of a country, so when I read this WaPo opinion piece by Log Cabin (i.e., LGBTQ) Republicans Robert Kabel and Jill Homan endorsing President Trump on the grounds that he’s been good for the LGBTQ community, I shook my head at another pair of folks walking down that treacherous, yet so easy path. After all, evaluating a single issue is so much easier than synthesizing a few dozen issues and Trump’s responses to them before coming to a conclusion. Unfortunately, the fact that it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s right.
But the desperation of Kabel and Homan to endorse their President leaks through in this paragraph:
And it is not merely policies specific to LGBTQ people that have been good for our community. The president’s tax cuts have benefited LGBTQ families and helped put food on their tables. His opportunity zones have helped create new LGBTQ-founded small businesses. The administration’s aggressive negotiations on trade deals have preserved LGBTQ jobs. His hard line on foreign policy has protected LGBTQ lives. What benefits all Americans benefits the LGBTQ community, as we cross every racial, socioeconomic, religious and cultural divide.
It’s entirely reasonable to ask whether or not those same policies benefit those groups opposed to LGBTQ protections and rights, and realize that, yes, they do. In other words, Trump’s policies, celebrated above by Kabel and Homan, may actually benefit their cultural opponents – anti-LGBTQers, to be explicit – more than they benefit the LGBTQ community.
The hand is not faster than the eye.
Kabel and Homan conveniently skip over the favor shown by Trump and Pence for religious organizations in general, attempting to give them the right to discriminate against anyone they can justify under the religious rubric. The disdain, even loathing, a number of religious organizations have shown for the LGBTQ community is the sort of thing that strains the fabric of society, because at this point the denial of these rights and protections are seen as unjust in a rational society, and perhaps the bedrock of American society is not obeying the arbitrary interpretations of obscure religious tomes, but the devotion to justice, however flawed that devotion has been, by significant portions of American society. The fact that we’ve fallen hideously short doesn’t mean that we accept it, but that we need to improve ourselves.
We fought a war over that.
So Kabel and Homan can attempt to celebrate Trump and Pence for what is ultimately a celebration of irrationality and cruelty, but I do not think I can join them in that.
