Delegates at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Cleveland, Ohio, have crafted the most anti-LGBT platform in history ― a platform the Log Cabin Republicans, the most well-known gay GOP group, even condemned in an ad. And Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has chosen anti-LGBT Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana as his running mate, a man who signed an extreme, discriminatory Religious Freedom Restoration Act last year.
Nonetheless, Log Cabin Republican president Gregory T. Angelo, in an interview with me on SiriusXM Progress at the RNC this week, still characterized Trump as a “leader” on LGBT rights.
“As far as LGBT issues go, he has actually been a leader on LGBT rights,” Angelo told me, even though Trump is opposed to marriage equality and supports the First Amendment Defense Act.
“He said he would be our friend as president,” Angelo said in Trump’s defense, referring specifically to Trump’s speech after the Orlando mass shooting at the queer Pulse nightclub where 49 people, mostly queer people of color, were murdered. “And he said we live in a remarkable society where people ‘love who they love and express themselves as they are.’”
When pressed on Trump’s opposition to the fundamental issue of marriage equality, Angelo said, “I don’t lose any sleep thinking for a minute that marriage equality in the country will be overturned.”
Angelo also excused Trump for choosing Mike Pence as a running mate and for the GOP’s extremist anti-LGBT platform. Speaking about the platform specifically, Angelo actually characterized Trump’s refusal to step in and prevent anti-LGBT language ― language which includes opposition to marriage equality, the promotion of transgender “bathroom bills” and support of so-called “ex-gay” therapy programs ― as a result of Trump being supportive of LGBT people.
“On some issues... the platform is exemplary of our candidate, Donald Trump ― on policies like illegal immigration, on trade,” he explained. “But in an odd way, because Donald Trump was not campaigning as a social issue warrior, there was a vacuum there. And the fact that there was a lack of campaigning from Donald Trump on social issues and a lack of assertion on these issues, that vacuum was filled by [Family Research Council’s] Tony Perkins and hard-line conservatives who saw an opportunity to double down on those issues in the platform.”
When challenged on the claim that Trump has not been campaigning by courting social conservatives on anti-LGBT issues ― the Republican presidential nominee promised on both Fox News and the Christian Broadcasting Network to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the historic Obergefell ruling and he has met with and made promises to anti-LGBT conservatives several times ― Angelo said he was confident that he still supported LGBT rights.
“Very little of [that] has me raising me an eyebrow,” he said, dismissing such campaigning and pointing to the fact that Trump “went to a same-sex wedding” and uses the term “LGBT,” which he called “historic” for a Republican presidential candidate.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar,rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.
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