P E R S P E C T I V E : M e d i a C i r c u s
Log Cabin Ain’t Real Maple Syrup
BY ED SIKOV
“The Trump Administration
Asked
the Supreme
Court to Legalize
Firing Workers Simply for Being
Gay.”
This was the arresting headline
of a BuzzFeed News story last week.
Coming on the heels of the Log Cabin
Syrup’s — excuse me, the Log Cabin
Republicans’ — endorsement of
Rump for a second term as Bigot-in-
Chief, the announcement provided a
jolt of grim, I-told-you-so amusement
to go along with the slaps in the face
we’ve gotten used to from the Syrup
gang.
The BuzzFeed News article itself
begins, “The Trump Administration
took its hardest line yet to legalize
anti-gay discrimination on Friday
when it asked the Supreme Court to
declare that federal law allows private
companies to fi re workers based
only on their sexual orientation. An
amicus brief fi led by the InJustice
Department weighed in on two cases
involving gay workers and what is
meant by Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, which bans discrimination
‘because of sex.’ The Administration
argued courts nationwide should
stop reading the civil rights law to
protect gay, lesbian, and bisexual
workers from bias because it was not
originally intended to do so.”
“The ordinary meaning of ‘sex’ is
biologically male or female,” the brief
attempts to assert; “it does not include
sexual orientation.”
Oh, really? Title VII does not spell
that out. It’s Rump and Co. that provides
that distinction. Had Congress
wanted to limit the clause’s meaning,
it would have found a way to do so.
“Sex,” of course, also means the
act of sex. If you say, for example,
that there’s too much sex in movies
today, nobody would assume you
were referring to a preponderance of
males and females. The word sex has
a far broader meaning than William
Barf’s InJustice Dept. is willing to
admit.
“Why Did the Gay Republicans
Endorse Trump?” Slate’s reporter
Christine Cauterucci asked . The endorsement
provoked the resignation
of several of Syrup’s board members,
including “Jordan Evans, the GOP’s
fi rst and only openly transgender
elected offi cial, and Robert Turner,
the former president of the group’s
DC Chapter” — and now its executive
director Jerri Ann Henry, as well!
Cauterucci continues, “They’re
joined by Jennifer Horn, a Log Cabin
Republicans board member and
former two-term chairwoman of the
New Hampshire Republican Party.
In her resignation letter, Horn wrote
that Trump’s ‘regular verbal assaults
against women, immigrants,
elected members of Congress… and
his willingness to stoke racial anger
and unrest in order to advance his
own political ambitions all subvert
the founding principles of our great
nation.’ In response, a Log Cabin Republicans
spokesman implied in a
statement that it was a simple confl
ict of interest: Horn recently led the
campaign of former Massachusetts
Gov. Bill Weld, who’s challenging
Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential
nomination.”
Cauterucci interviewed Horn, and
her fi rst question was, “Do you identify
as LGBTQ”; Horn answered, “No.”
She went on to explain, “My husband
and I have been married 28 years,
and we have fi ve children.”
Now, I don’t want to discriminate
against straight people, but come on!
Can’t the Syrups fi nd any qualifi ed
lesbians to serve on their board? I
suppose there are some, but none
of them resigned in protest the way
Horn did. In fact, the only other woman
on the board is vice chair Jill Homan,
who co-authored the Washington
Post editorial touting the Trump
endorsement.
The interview goes along for a
while, and then Cauterucci asks a
zinger: “There’s a cynical interpretation
to all of this that I’m wondering
how you feel about. Some people
would say that these Republicans
don’t actually believe that Trump will
change or stand up for them — but
that it benefi ts some Log Cabin Republicans
to support Trump for other
reasons, like the tax cuts, and that
makes it worth it to them.”
Call me cynical, but I don’t fi nd
this interpretation to be cynical at
all. It’s realistic and based on logic
and fact. In any case, Horn actually
agrees with it!
She responds, “I know that there
are many Republicans who feel that,
so I imagine there’s some equal percentage
— regardless of orientation,
I think that’s a strong feeling within
the party. I would suggest the president
has not even been particularly
good in the fi scal arena. Donald
Trump has added trillions of dollars
to our debt. He really has not met the
standard of the fi scal conservatives.
So I disagree with that argument, regardless
of who makes it.”
Note that Trump will have added
$9.1 trillion to the national debt during
his eight years in offi ce, assuming
he gets reelected.
Horn concludes with this little gem:
“I’ve never been one who believed that
in order to be part of the party that
you had to be in 100 percent agreement
with everything that the party
says or does. I’ve always sort of embraced
the Ronald Reagan big-tent
party idea, that anybody who wants
to stand with you on any of the core
principles, and work toward those
and fi ght for those — that’s valuable,
and that’s what the party should be.”
Yeah? Salon’s Ian Haney-Lopez will
have the fi nal word on the Big Tent
Theory of Reagan’s Republicanism.
“Reagan’s race-baiting continued
when he moved to national politics,”
he wrote. “After securing the Republican
nomination in 1980, Reagan
launched his offi cial campaign at a
county fair just outside Philadelphia,
Mississippi, the town still notorious
in the national imagination for the
Klan lynching of civil rights volunteers
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,
and Michael Schwerner 16
years earlier. Reagan selected the location
on the advice of a local offi cial,
who had written to the Republican
National Committee assuring them
that the Neshoba County Fair was an
ideal place for winning ‘George Wallace
inclined voters.’ Neshoba did not
disappoint. The candidate arrived to
a raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000
whites chanting, ‘We want Reagan!
We want Reagan!’ — and he returned
their fevered embrace by assuring
them, ‘I believe in states’ rights.’
“In 1984, Reagan came back, this
time to endorse the neo-Confederate
slogan ‘the South shall rise again.’ As
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert
concludes, ‘Reagan may have
been blessed with a Hollywood smile
and an avuncular delivery, but he
was elbow deep in the same old racebaiting
Southern strategy of Goldwater
and Nixon.’”
The ”party of Lincoln,” my ass.
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