Author’s Note: The word “Queer” will be used in lieu of the term GLBTQQI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex)
I wanna take a trip through time in The New Day time machine…the destination is the 80’s when Ronald Reagan made a deal with Jerry Falwell to earn evangelical votes and “The Moral Majority,” as a result, came to power. This deal with the devil led to the AIDS Epidemic being ignored and laughed at by the Reagan Administration which helped give rise to systemic and societal homophobia.
As time has gone on so have Reagan and Falwell (to rot in hell where they belong). Society has become more accepting of queer people, but the use our rights as a means to get votes is responsible for the hate that still continues, it leads to persecution, creating further hate, and, subsequently, tragedies like the one in Orlando.
Everyone has friends, this is a fact true of Republicans, some of those friends are even members of the queer community. Even in spite of political differences, republicans and queer Americans can get along as friends but those queer friends still occasionally had to speak up and call their friends on their party’s anti-queer policies. So those republicans created a go to phrase to try and exit the convo ASAP:
“Well, I’m a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative.”
At one time we could hear that phrase and view it as an acceptable answer. The reality is that it was always nonsensical lip service in the guise of a political justification that simply was there to help a Republican alleviate their awkwardness of not knowing what to say when they were asked about turning around and voting against the social issues they told you they supported.
In the last two Presidential elections, after every defeat the GOP had people saying to drop the social issues out of the platform, yet at every convention, when given the chance, the party caved to hate and included it. No matter when John McCain’s daughter said it after her dad lost in 2008, no matter after 2012, when the GOP funded autopsy of 2012, said the to move to the left on queer issues. However, here we are in 2016 and the GOP just voted to support the most radically Anti-Queer platform yet and still you have people who are registered or voting Republican out there saying, “Well, I’m a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative…I will support my gay friends.”
The reality is….they don’t.
No matter how much a Republican says they they care about their queer friends or family, by voting for a Republican in 2016, they’re supporting the hate that oozes from the GOP party platform.
Republicans make the claim that at their core, they stand for limited government and yet they have managed to create a party platform that includes the restricting of women’s health, of declaring media (pornography in this case) a public health menace, of making it legal for children to go through the mental anguish and torture of illegal and scientifically invalid conversion therapy, of having the government decide what the definition of marriage is and of declaring who needs to go in which bathroom.
How is that limited government?
Simply put, it’s not. It actually takes it a step further because the origins of this overreach are based in a religion that not everyone in this country believes in. That same party that claims to be defenders of the Constitution wants to enforce laws that contradict the idea of a nationalized religion. The party that says it believes in “limited government” thinks that that is okay.
It’s not.
Let me be clear this isn’t where I tell you to vote for Hillary, I’d like you to, but that’s not the point here.
If you are a Republican that truly does believe in the equality of your queer friends but also in limited government and fiscal conservatism, you should take this year to send a message to your party to FINALLY listen, because the GOP can switch their mentality.
In society, it violates the law to not to do something reasonable to prevent harm or ill for a person. How is this any different?
All throughout history, we have seen shifts in the paradigms of political parties. The Republicans, once the party that freed the slaves and supported the advancement of African American rights more than the Democrats did, have become a party today that wants to set that same group back.
We have seen, as recently as this election cycle, that those fed up with the current Democratic Party stand behind a man determined to change the party’s platform and guess what, that change came. “Republican” does not have to be equated with hate and radical bigotry. Change like that can only come, however, from within. It can only come from the people who vote in that party rejecting outdated and polices. It can only come from people who ACTUALLY want it.
So for those Republicans out there who TRULY care for their queer friends and family, who see women as equals, who don’t want to add hurdles for people of color, and who truly do believe in limited government, you have to be the change you want to see, otherwise your party will continue to make liars of you those you claim to care about.
In 2016 by supporting a Republican candidate, it is consenting and agreeing to vote against queer rights, there’s no other way to spin it. If that agenda is what you believe, then that’s your hate realized. If however, you are voting for the Republicans in 2016 but also claim that you care about your queer friends, well let me tell you now, you’re lying only to yourself, cause us queers are done having you lie to us.
Sidney
