“You can back the GOP or you can advocate for equal rights for LGBT people. You can’t do both at once—and anyone who claims to be doing both is lying.”
Dan Savage, renowned author, LGBT activist and media pundit, had a few harsh words for the Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-LGBT Republican lobbying group. In an editorial this week Savage was highly critical of the group, calling their efforts to promote acceptance of the LGBT community from within the Republican Party an “Utter Failure,” and “most ineffectual political advocacy org this side of NAMBLA.”
“Log Cabin Republicans have been working to ‘transform the GOP from the inside’ for forty years and not only hasn’t it gotten better, it has gotten worse,” writes Savage. Citing deepening ideological entrenchment within the Republican Party, he questioned the group’s impact. “Whatever the Log Cabin Republicans think they’re doing ‘inside’ the Republican Party, it isn’t working, it has never worked, and they need to stop pretending it’ll ever work.”
The GOP platform adopted Monday contains several anti-LGBT planks, including full-throated opposition to marriage equality, support for “ex-gay” conversion therapy for children, support for anti-trans bathroom policies, and support for the rights of faith-based adoption agencies to refuse adoptions to homosexual couples without losing federal funding.
Savage also took issue with efforts by the Log Cabin Republicans to fundraise off of the virulently anti-LGBT platform.
“The Log Cabin Republicans begged people to send them ‘$500, $250, $100, or whatever you can give,’ money they would use to ‘take back the platform’ and ‘take back the party.’ They were going to be on the floor of the RNC! They weren’t going to ‘go quietly into the night!’ They were going to fight!”
Indeed, a fundraising letter was sent out by Log Cabin Republican President Gregory T. Angelo suggesting that they would fight the party platform. “Take back the Platform. Take back the Party. Stand up today and let the folks on the Platform Committee who paved the way to this foolishness know you’re not going down without a fight,” the letter implored.
An attempt was made to petition the Republican National Committee to have the anti-LGBT language removed, but it failed, and the platform passed Monday with little opposition.
On Tuesday, the Log Cabin Republicans placed a full page add in USA Today, slamming their party’s platform.
In a follow up article, Savage addressed attempts by the Log Cabin Republicans to remove the anti-LGBT platform language. “They promised a floor fight over the platform — and raised money on that promise — but didn’t deliver,” he wrote. “The missing floor fight is what I was referring to when I slammed LCR for allowing the adoption of platform ‘without a peep of protest.'”
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Image of Dan Savage via Facebook