If you have your finger anywhere near the pulse of animated GIF culture lately, you've probably scrolled through at least a few responses to Donald Trump's "ask the gays." It all began after Trump decided to use the Orlando shooting as a campaign opportunity, and claimed that he's a better friend to the gays than Hillary Clinton.
"Ask the gays what they think and what they do," he said, which is awfully vague but okay. "who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community: Donald Trump with his actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words?"
What are you even, Donald? What actions?
I would love to believe that there were some actual actions out there, somewhere, anywhere, that Donald took on behalf of "the gays." And yes, his foundation gives money to HIV research, occasionally. He went to some gay weddings. He talks to gay people. Back in 2000, he said he liked the idea of adding LGBT employment protection to the Civil Rights Act. (But as Donald did not, in fact, find a way to personally amend the Civil Rights Act, we can keep that one in the "words" column rather than "actions.")
Hillary, on the other hand, launched a fund at the state department that advocates for LGBT rights around the world. And that's only the beginning — I'm not going to list everything she did for queer people (you can read about them here and here) because it is a long and wonky list. Yeah, she was late to the party on gay marriage, but she's here now; and throughout her career her stance on LGBT issues has steadily gotten better over time.
Trump waffles all over the place on anything gay, in a way very much like a person who does not actually care about the issue. It's no different from how he handles just about anything else: first he fumes about how other people have been doing a lousy job, then he muses noncommittally about how he'd do better, without any specifics. As a result, he has absolutely no position at all. Sometimes his words make it sound like he's for civil unions, other times against; sometimes he's in favor of job protections, other times he says he'd rescind them.
This is a bit of a worry, because it's left a sort of position-vacuum within his campaign that can be filled with some truly unsavory characters. He recently announced an Evangelical Advisory Board, and the names on it are enough to fill any decent person with dread: Ralph Reed, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr, Robert Jeffress, and on and on and on. The board also includes our old friend Michele Bachman, who let's assume has some thoughts on the topic of having queer people in one's immediate family.
I hate to judge a man solely by the company he keeps, but it's hard not to since Donald doesn't do any work himself — he just hires other people to do it for him. Those board members might as well think of themselves as employees, since Donald's paying them by giving them access to his followers (they introduce him at rallies, and do the heavy lifting of responding to the abortion ruling so he doesn't have to). And like employees, he'll get rid of them the moment they're not useful anymore.
A lousy boss is bad enough, but a whole organization staffed by twits and anti-LGBT bigots could do far more harm. Even if you believe that American voters are fundamentally good and decent, and democracy will never let a despot become president (and bless your heart if you do), Trump's cabal can still do plenty of cultural harm.
I posted a video on Monday about Trump's lousy LGBT record. In response, numerous LGBT people have commented that they support Trump because he'll protect them from all the Muslims who want to kill them. These are openly queer people spreading this terrible lie, people who generally exist outside of the evangelical bubble. If they've been convinced that scary brown people are coming to kill them, what do you think the diehard evangelicals are ready to believe — and worse, ready to do?
