Gay GOP group: Vote for Romney, he hates you

10/23/2012 1:44pm by 1,058

Vote For Romney, He Hates You

What a bizarre endorsement.

The lead gay Republican group, Log Cabin Republicans, told gay voters today that they should vote for Mitt Romney, unless they care about their civil rights, then they shouldn’t.

It was a self-contained flip-flop worthy of Mitt Romney himself.

Vintage woman in closet

“Does this closet look small on me?”
via Shutterstock

Log Cabin titled their statement of support for Romney, “We Are Americans First.”

If you’re gay, you immediately get the message, and it’s quite a historically horrible one. It’s a line that self-hating gay Republicans have used for years in order to justify voting against their own humanity: “Yes, I’m gay, but it’s only a part of me.”

When they say that, they mean: “I don’t really care about my civil rights, I’m rather embarrassed about being gay, and money is more important to me, so leave me alone, I’m voting Republican.”

Americans First, Gays Last

I experienced the bizarre Log Cabin mentality first-hand back in the 90s here in DC. I was attending an AIDS Ride fundraiser on a beautiful rooftop in the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood. I was with a group of Democratic friends and somehow started chatting with a guy who, I later found out, was chief of staff to a Republican House member. I distinctly remember being horrified at our conversation. It went something like this:

SELF-HATING GAY REPUBLICAN: You know, the federal government shouldn’t be spending any money on AIDS research.  (Mind you, we were at an AIDS fundraiser at the height of the epidemic.)

ME: Huh?

SHGR: You know that people like us will never benefit from the research, it doesn’t affect people like us.  (He meant, people like us (yuppie white boys?) don’t get AIDS.)

ME: Actually, I’ve got a good friend who just died, and he was “like us.”

SHGR: Oh please, let Barbra Streisand and her rich friends pay for the research.

ME: Huh?

(Then the self-hating gay Republican started talking about why he votes, and is going to vote, Republican – I’m pretty sure this was right before the 1992 presidential election.)

SHGR: I make six figures, you know.

ME: Huh?

SHGR: So I have more important things to worry about than being gay, like my mortgage.

This is a paraphrase, but it’s 100% true. I couldn’t believe my ears. Twenty years later, I can still remember the conversation, and his face.

So with that in mind, check, out this line buried in Log Cabin’s endorsement of Mitt Romney:

If LGBT issues are a voter’s highest or only priority, then Governor Romney may not be that voter’s choice.

You think?

Not to mention, you are a gay civil rights group. So what exactly is your group’s “highest priority” if not gay civil rights?

And I quote from Log Cabin’s own mission statement, the very first line, in bold:

We stand for the proposition that all of us are created equal – worthy of the same rights to freedom, liberty, and equality.

Um, no you don’t.  You just made that perfectly clear in your endorsement statement.  You said that your rights and liberties are not your highest priority, but rather you’re more concerned with the deficit, job creation, and unbelievably, health care reform.

Health care reform?  Seriously?  This is a gay civil rights group advocating the repeal of health care reform when they know that they will quite literally be taking health insurance away from gay people, and others, with HIV/AIDS who under Mitt Romney’s health care have a pre-existing condition which precludes them from getting insurance.

Under Obamacare, there is a federal plan available, at a reasonable (though still expensive, this is America after all) cost, for people with pre-existing conditions that preclude them from coverage in the market.  That’s until Obamacare is fully implemented, then insurers will no longer be able to turn you away, and will no longer be able to charge you more than someone else who’s your age and healthy.

It costs $2,000 a month to pay for HIV/AIDS drugs.  My health insurance, for example, covers $1,500 in prescription drugs a year.  I have no idea how I’d pay for life-saving drugs if I ever became infected (or if I ever got MS, which bears the same cost).  For a gay civil rights group to endorse taking health care away from people with HIV/AIDS, is abominable.

Self-Hate Is Not a Family Value

Log Cabin has always had a checkered past.  I joined them back in 1992 or so, when I was first coming out, and a Republican.  I quit the group six months later, as they only seemed interested in hurting Democrats, rather than helping gays.  A few years ago, Log Cabin seemed to have turned a corner.  About eight years ago, they finally matured into a group that understood that it could be more than simply a group therapy session for gays who hated being gay.  That self-awareness culminated in a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell lawsuit that Log Cabin filed, and which helped to pressure the Obama administration to truly push to repeal the policy.

But now, because of fear of being supplanted by a new gay Republican group that makes no bones about not giving a damn about gay people or their rights, Log Cabin has crawled back into its old skin, providing cover, and serving as political beard, for the Republican party’s hate, bigotry and intolerance.

Paul Ryan is awful on gay civil rights.

Mitt Romney is even worse.

But Log Cabin proudly proclaims: “We are Americans first.”

Yes.  And gay-Americans last.

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@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

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