Joy Silver Response to “Log Cabin Republicans”

Charles T. Moran, president of Log Cabin Republicans, ended his recent column in The Desert Sun with the line: “Our members are conservatives and will keep fighting Democrats however we can.” The Log Cabin Republican’s website insists they are “taking a stand against cancel culture, social shaming, and slander” because “truth is on” their side.  They need to examine what passes for truth.

 

Attention: The Log Cabin Republicans, you have already been “cancelled” by being shut out of the Texas Republican convention. You have been  “social shamed” having your “lifestyle choice” deemed abnormal. You have been “slandered” as child groomers and pedophiles.  The Log Cabin Republicans must come to terms with being in an abusive relationship. An abusive relationship is defined by one party exerting power and control over the other in a negative way.  

Log Cabin Republicans have bonded with their abusers. Emotional “bonding” with abusers is a familiar story, known as the Stockholm Syndrome. Some characteristics are:

1)  Positive feelings by the victim toward the abuser/controller (wants to be part of the group that does not want them)  
2) Negative feelings by the victim toward family, friends, or authorities trying to rescue/support them or win their release (fighting the Democrats who are standing up for them)  
3) Support of the abuser’s reasons and behaviors (Moran’s quote: “We have the same values”)  
4) Positive feelings by the abuser toward the victim (accepting the former president as being supportive while campaigning)  
5) Supportive behaviors by the victim, at times helping the abuser (participating and donating to GOP campaigns) 
6) Inability to engage in behaviors that may assist in their release or detachment (unable to disengage from the party wanting to criminalize their existence)

Consider the evidence: Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion to the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade is as follows: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including “Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”  The decisions Lawrence v. Texas (same-sex intimacy) and Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage) are about LGBT people. Interestingly, Thomas does not include the Loving v. Virginia decision (marrying across racial lines) though it relies on the same 14^th amendment sections.

Justice Samuel Alito argued that any rights that are “unenumerated” in the U.S. Constitution can’t be recognized as a fundamental right unless they are “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.”  That will always leave out women, LGBTQ people, and those who are not straight, white men.  Griswold v. Connecticut (contraceptive use) Skinner v. Oklahoma (ending forced sterilization) are also on the block, as they are based on the same rationale for ending Roe.

Moran says that “Texas Republicans don’t have to change their values to let us in.  We are already here.”  The Texas party “values” he claims to share, have been activated by Christian white nationalism, and many of its adherents call for legislation, criminalization, even violence, against LGBT people.  As goes to the Texas GOP, so goes the national party.

Democrats don’t always agree with one another, but we will continue to stand up for LBGT people’s right to live, to engage in intimacy, to marry, and to be safe from violence. Log Cabin Republicans, I urge you to join us before it’s too late.