Q Toon: Make America Date Again

Turns out gay MAGAs can be incels, too.

Somebody in the Facebook group "Conservative Gay Singles" made a snarky post threatening a class action suit against "the Dems" because hook-ups refuse to sleep with him once they find out his MAGA proclivities. 

The post went viral on Threads (with the original poster's identity redacted), earning howls of derisive chatter from the very sort of people who have been swiping left on the guy's Grindr profile.

Now, I thought Republicans were enthusiastically in favor of discrimination based on deeply held beliefs (especially against gays), which might be the Achilles Heel of that Conservative Gay Single's class action suit. 

Mr. Conservative Gay Single wasn't content to limit his proposed class action suit against non-MAGA gays. He invited the rest of the CGS group to join him in suing family members and former friends who have shunned them over political differences. 

Gee, the poor guys can't get laid, their friends have ghosted them, and their families won't talk to them? What could be the problem?

Oh, yeah, must be the Democrats. I almost forgot.

Good thing those guys are so good at "owning" us libs. Maybe they ought to learn how to be happy with that.

Q Toon: Republican Day of Risibility

March 31 was Easter Sunday in the Western Heterodox Christian Church, and also Transgender Visibility Day on the social issues calendar. The White House took note of both events, issuing declarations of well wishes.

"Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation. Whether serving their communities or in the military, raising families or running businesses, the help America thrive. They deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American, including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves."

Republicans in government and media were apoplectic. How dare this White House sully Resurrection of Our Lord Sunday by giving a nod to those heathens in conflict with their assigned gender! 

The campaign of Corrupt Former President Donald Trump fulminated that merely acknowledging transgender Americans was "appalling and insulting." Parson of the House Mike Johnson called it "outrageous and abhorrent" and a "betrayal of the central tenet of Easter."

I'm not quite clear on how the central tenet of Jesus not accepting death as the final word is that gender is forever fixed and immutable. Perhaps that's explained in one of those $59.99 Trump Bibles.

Meanwhile, Charles Moran, President of the GOPlgbtq- organization Log Cabin Republicans gave a pearl-clutching interview in Newsweek, in which he exclaimed that he was "awe-struck that nobody in the White House thought that it might be prudent to possibly move the trans proclamation up or back a day, so it didn't directly conflict with the most important holiday in the Christian faith."

Of course, if they had moved Transgender Visibility Day back a day, it would have been on the day of the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. No doubt Republicans would have had their knickers in a knot over proclaiming Transgender Visibility Day at the same time that the Biden-Harrises had invited scores of innocent little children onto the premises.

By the way (as Mike Peterson beat me to the punch in observing the other day), Eastern Orthodox Easter will be on cinco de mayo this year. Brace yourself for further right-wing high dudgeon if the White House acknowledges both of those.

Have yourself a shot of tequila every time you hear some Republican utter the phrase "central tenet of Easter."

Just remember: it was the Corrupt Trump Administration that was responsible for letting Easter fall on April Fools Day in 2018. You'll never see Joe Biden letting that happen on his watch.

Q Toon: Faith, Hope and Love, aBiden

Human Rights Campaign issued their endorsement of Joe Biden for president this week on the eighth anniversary of his having proclaimed his support for marriage equality. That support was not an isolated outlier on LGBTQ+ issues, as the announcement explained:

As a Member of Congress over 36 years, Biden championed dozens of pieces of legislation providing greater protections for LGBTQ people. His support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) advocated for our dignity in the workplace. And his courage to do what’s right, even though it may be unpopular, twice stopped two constitutional amendments enshrining marriage discrimination as the law of the land. Biden’s early support for HIV/AIDS resources helped establish the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. While as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden helped secure the reauthorization of PEPFAR, which significantly expanded the funding and targets for treatment, care, and prevention of HIV/AIDS and repealed a statutory ban on visas for people who were HIV-positive.
As Vice President, Biden continued his decades-long fight for LGBTQ hate crime prevention playing an integral role in passing the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. He played a leading role in repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and opening service for transgender people giving LGBTQ service members the visibility and respect they deserve. In 2012, his support for the freedom to marry marked a major turning point for the marriage equality movement, contributing to a sea change in public opinion that ultimately culminated in a Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that made marriage equality the law of the land.
Throughout his career, Biden has been ahead of the curve on expanding protections and rights for transgender Americans. In 2012, he called transgender rights the “civil rights issue of our time” articulating a truth that many — even in his own party at the time — left unaddressed. He reiterated that statement when launching his LGBTQ platform earlier this year. He worked with President Obama to install transgender Americans throughout the administration including to positions within the White House. Throughout his campaign, Biden has elevated the need to address the epidemic of violence facing the transgender community — especially transgender women of color — and articulated a strong plan to empower transgender Americans in the workforce to help combat conditions that lead to that disproportionate violence.

Not that Biden's LGBTQ+ record is solid gold. In 1996, he voted for the Republicans' "Defense of Marriage Act." He had a lot of company; it passed the Senate 85-14. (Bernie Sanders joined 65 Democrats and Steve Gunderson, R-WI, in voting against it in the House; none of this year's other major presidential contenders were in Congress at the time.)

On the other hand, the only LGBTQ+-positive thing the Corrupt Trump Administration can point to is Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell's advocacy of decriminalizing homosexuality in other countries, which has yet to produce any tangible results.

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed his reelection last year, notwithstanding Trump's attacks on transgender service members in the U.S. military. Rhapsodizing that "For LGBTQ Republicans, watching the 2016 GOP convention before Donald Trump took the stage was like a dream fulfilled," the Log Cabinettes were swayed by general issues of tax cuts and trade negotiations. Frankly, the Log Cabin Republicans are no more likely to withhold their endorsement of an incumbent president of their own party than the Stonewall Democrats would be.

The Stonewall Democrats haven't made a presidential endorsement yet this year. Social distancing, don't you know.

Q Toon: This Just In

In a Washington Post op-ed back on August 15, Robert Kabel and Jill Homan, Board and Vice Chairs, respectively, of the Log Cabin Republicans, published their endorsement of Donald Berzilius Trump for reelection in 2020. According to Kabel and Homan, Trump is responsible for leading the GOP away from its open hostility to LGBTQ humans:

This is the party that Trump has helped make possible by moving past the culture wars that dominated the 1990s and early 2000s, in particular by removing gay rights as a wedge issue from the old Republican playbook. And since taking office, President Trump has followed through on many of his commitments to the United States, including taking bold actions that benefit the LGBTQ community.

Kabel and Homan apparently missed that plank in their party's 2016 platform renewing its support for a Federal Marriage Amendment and sending kids off to quack conversion therapy chambers.

Since the LCR went public with its allegiance to their fearless leader, the Corrupt Trump Administration has now filed LGBTQ-hostile amicus briefs in three Supreme Court cases. I drew last week about the Trumpsters' filing that transgender employees are not covered under equal opportunity law because congressmen in 1964 didn't have transgender persons in mind at the time.

Now, the Corrupt Trump Administration wants the Supreme Court to rule that federal law allows private companies to fire workers based on sexual orientation, filing an amicus brief in the cases of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia and Altitude Express v. Zarda.

Remarkably, the department argued in its memorandum that the reason anti-gay discrimination is not unlawful under the ban on sex-based discrimination is because, in cases of adverse treatment by an employer, both gay men and gay women would be addressed equally poorly.
Upon experiencing discrimination from an employer, both men and women in same-sex relationships "would be similarly situated — and they would be treated the same," the department argued, negating a claim under Title VII's sex-based protections.

If the Trumpsters had not themselves put forward the argument that "both gay men and gay women would be addressed equally poorly," I probably would have made that the punch line of this week's cartoon. Damn, but it is hard to make jokes about the Corrupt Trump Administration's way of thinking when the CTA's way of thinking is a joke all by itself.

Meanwhile, a number of prominent Log Cabin members have quit the organization over Kabel and Homan's op-ed, most recently Executive Director Jerri Ann Henry. But according to those who were involved in the endorsement decision, it was approved by a majority of respondents from national chapters of the organization.

The endorsement cited Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell's public advocacy of pushing antigay foreign governments to come around on LGBTQ rights, but a more likely explanation for the endorsement is that Trump only listens to people who kiss his ring and his ass first.

[T]here’s a sense throughout the party that Trump expects loyalty and fealty before he’s earned it. President Trump does not feel that he should have to take action or stand on principle or express support for anyone else. He sees all that as being activity and behavior that should be directed toward him.

Maybe this buys Kabel or Homan a seat at the table when LGBTQ issues are discussed someday.

More likely, an appointment as Ambassador to Greenland.

GOP Conventions Past

Since I've already posted about 1916 this week, for today's installment of Swerveback Saturday, I rummage through the dusty crate of my own cartoons.

The topic this week is cartoons about Republican National Conventions. I didn't draw national issue toons for a newspaper that published during the summer until 1988, so that's where we'll start. My George H.W. Bush caricature didn't quite come together until this second one:

My caricature of Vice President Dan Quayle never really came together at all, so I don't miss him as a national figure.

Skipping an entire generation, all I can find from 1992 to 2000 is this never-published one. It might have worked better in a vertical (portrait) orientation, so that I'd have had room to draw George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's with their arms raised.

As you've seen, these convention cartoons are usually about the candidates; but once in a while, the convention itself comes up for discussion. There was never any contest for the Republican nomination when Dubya ran for reelection in 2004...

...so instead I coupled the GOP keeping its LGBT supporters at arms length with its introduction of a "free protest zone" that year.

The party platform always gets a lot of attention at convention time, even if it becomes wide open to interpretation afterward.

Because...

Q Toon: Log Cabin Fever

At the risk of piling on Mrs. Clinton, here's this week's cartoon:

Last month, The Log Cabin Republicans emerged from their hole in the ground to issue a political ad criticizing Hillary Clinton for being “wrong on gay rights when it mattered.” Their ad shows clips of Hillary Clinton making statements such as "I do not support gay marriage" in 2002 and 2004, followed by one of Bernie Sanders on Rachel Maddow's show last October in which he says, "It's great that people evolve... but it's important for people to stand up when the going is tough."

Now, whatever one thinks about Bernie Sanders' record on LGBT issues, it's hard to imagine that LGBTs who identify as Republican actually want to see the Vermont Socialist elected President of the United States. (The Log Cabin Boys do post a disclaimer at the end of the ad stating that they aren't endorsing either candidate. Whew! I'm glad they've cleared that up.)

Log Cabin president Gregory Angelo told the Washington Blade, "I personally think and Log Cabin Republicans thinks [sic] that voters should be aware of Hillary Clinton’s past, specifically on marriage equality. We felt that urgency to do so now ... because other LGBT organizations have not done due diligence regarding Hillary Clinton’s past, and we felt we were in a unique position to step up in that regard."

A decade ago, you'd have been very hard pressed to find any Democrat at the national level willing to vouch for marriage equality. Civil unions were as far as most of them were willing to venture.

You'd have had a hard time finding any Socialists at the national level pushing for marriage equality, either. Not included in the LCR ad is Sanders, in the same Rachel Maddow interview, defending having told the Rutland Herald in 2006, when asked whether Vermont should legalize same-sex marriage, “not right now.”

Nor do the Log Cabin Boys include anything from this 16-year-old column by the late Peter Freyne about Sanders' reaction after Vermont's Supreme Court ordered the state legislature to do something to afford same-sex couples equal rights with different-sex couples. I'll quote Freyne at length:

Obtaining Congressman Bernie Sanders’ position on the gay marriage issue was like pulling teeth...from a rhinoceros. Last month, shortly after the decision of the Amestoy Court was issued, Mr. Sanders publicly tried walking the tightrope — applauding the court’s decision and the cause of equal rights without supporting civil marriage for same-sex couples.
This week we were no more successful getting a straight answer. All we did get was a carefully crafted non-statement statement via e-mail from Washington D.C. And Bernie’s statement wins him the Vermont congressional delegation’s Wishy-Washy Award hands down.
Once more he “applauds” the court decision but won’t go anywhere near choosing between same-sex “marriage” and domestic partnership. “By all accounts the legislature is approaching this issue in a considered and appropriate manner and I support the current process.”
Supports the current process, does he? What a courageous radical!
That’s as far as Ol’ Bernardo would go. It’s an election year, yet despite the lack of a serious challenger, The Bern’s gut-level paranoia is acting up. He’s afraid to say something that might alienate his conservative, rebel-loving rural following out in the hills. Something that could be interpreted as “Bernie Loves Queers!”

As Freyne noted earlier in the column, however, the two Democrats running for Sanders' seat in Congress that year were both on the record in support of full marriage equality. Sanders easily won reelection in 2000, so I guess Sanders had the better read on those rebel-loving rural Vermonters.

To be perfectly honest, I tend to think the Democrats would be better off not nominating a guy who wasn't even a member of their party a year ago (and the Republicans would be better off not nominating a Donnie-Come-Lately, too, for that matter). But wherever the candidates stood on marriage equality in 1972, or 2000, or 2004, or 2006, I want to support a candidate who'll stand up for LGBT rights "when it matters."

Like when Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires.

Q Toon: Who Let the Dogs Out?

The Republican Party of Texas banned gay interest groups from having booths at the party's convention in Fort Worth this past weekend.

“It’s simply unconscionable that more than a dozen years since Log Cabin Republicans took the fight for gay equality against the homophobic fringe of the Party, the Texas State GOP still doesn’t get it,” LCR National Executive Director Gregory T. Angelo said. “We are your friends and neighbors; we are your colleagues and family members; above all else, we are loyal Republicans, and deserve a literal seat at the table at the Texas State GOP Convention."

And while the Log Cabin folks are ecstatic that the convention removed some of the most hateful language from the party platform, they do remind one of the guy who explained that the reason he was beating himself over the head with a two-by-four was that "It feels so good when I stop."

Q Toon: Republican Group Endorses Mitt Romney!

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed Mitt Romney for President this month after a brief meeting with the candidate. I guess his staunch opposition to marriage equality as a candidate and as Governor of Massachusetts never came up.

Highlights of their endorsement announcement:

"If LGBT issues are a voter's highest or only priority, then Governor Romney may not be that voter's choice. However, Log Cabin Republicans is an organization representing multifaceted individuals with diverse priorities. Having closely reviewed the candidate’s history and observed the campaign, we believe Governor Romney will make cutting spending and job creation his priorities, and, as his record as Governor of Massachusetts suggests, will not waste his precious time in office with legislative attacks on LGBT Americans. ...

"And for those people who point fearfully to potential vacancies on the United States Supreme Court, we offer a reminder: five of the eight federal court rulings against DOMA were written by Republican-appointed judges. Mitt Romney is not Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan is not Michele Bachmann."

They then go on to argue that Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden is Anthony Weiner.

Q Toon: Texas Republicans

The Texas Republican Party has a plank in this year's platform that explicitly demands the criminalization of "sodomy" and the arrest of anyone who unites a same-sex couple in matrimony. The plank also demands a ban on adoption by gay couples,

Family Values – We affirm that this section is a response to the attacks on traditional family values. These include wellfunded, vigorous political and judicial attempts by powerful organizations and branches of the government to force acceptance, affirmation and normalization of homosexual behavior upon school children, parents, educational institutions, businesses, employees, government bodies and religious institutions and charities. These aggressive, intolerant efforts marginalize as bigots anyone who dissents. ...
Marriage Licenses – We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such.
Homosexuality – We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the
fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable 'alternative' lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should 'family' be redefined to include homosexual 'couples.' We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant
special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil
penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.
Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

Clearly, the Texas Republican "Party" has some serious antigay bigotry going on, even as they seek to deny any bigotry exists.

The Log Cabin Republicans have pooh-poohed concerns over the homophobes who control their party:

"I could go on and on about the platform writing process, how it's controlled by the extremists of our party, and how the old guard scheduled the Texas Republican Convention to make it difficult to have honest debate on the floor.
"What is more important is to understand the real impact the platform has on Republican legislative priorities.
"The fact is, Hardy Haberman is absolutely wrong in believing the platform is used as a litmus test for candidate recruitment and that it’s the basis for legislative decisions."

-- Rob Schlein, president of Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas.

Mr. Schlein's efforts to distance himself and the LCRoD from the Republican party -- even to distance the Texas Republican Party from its own platform -- reminded me of an old joke -- well, at least as old as the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies. Thus, this week's cartoon.

Incidentally, Texas's 1860 anti-sodomy law was overturned in 2003 by the landmark Supreme Court decision Lawrence et al. v. Texas. The court found that two men arrested in their own home by Houston police (responding to an unfriendly neighbor's complaint) were not committing a crime and that the law was an unconstitutional intrusion into the private conduct of citizens.