Q Toon: Tea for Two

If I hadn't drawn this cartoon particularly for LGBT publications, I might well have added a few other fellow travelers in Mr. Teabagger's wake: the governmental shills for corporations, anti-environmentalists, anti-women's reproductive rights activists, anti-Latino xenophobes, and the rest of the lot.

But for the purposes of this cartoon, I'm concerned that should Republicans (and let's face it, the Tea Party is the activist wing of the Republican Party for this election cycle) take over state and federal government, what few gains the LGBT community has made in the past few years are seriously at risk. Republican Gubernatorial candidates in my home state have pledged to turn the document registering my domestic partnership into an expensive sheet of toilet paper. There will no doubt be a return to the days of federal laws forbidding state and local governments from recognizing LGBT rights. Not only will "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" stay on the books, Republicans will tack a provision barring gay and lesbians from military service onto their constitutional amendment denying us any right to marry, adopt, speak in church, publicly assemble or use public rest rooms.

There are not enough libertarians in the Republican party to offset conservatives' tendency to believe in Small Government only insofar as it deals with Big Business. When it comes to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of you and me, Republicans are perfectly happy to enlarge governmental intrusion.