The big news about allegedly anti-gay Republicans over the weekend concerned a dust-up between the Texas Republican Party and the Log Cabin Republicans, a group that represents LGBT GOPers.
The Texas GOP reportedly denied the Fort Worth chapter of the LCR a booth at the statewide party convention this past weekend. That prompted Don Trump Jr. and some former Trump administration officials to criticize the state party for “canceling” gay Republicans.
This, of course, will feed the Democratic narrative that Republicans are intolerant.
Yet what many people likely will not read in the national media was that the Log Cabin Republicans defended Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his state’s new Parental Rights in Education law.
The law, which takes effect July 1, bans public school districts and classroom teachers from implementing lessons focused on sexual orientation or gender identity.
President Joe Biden denounced the law last week by issuing a Pride Month executive order designed to stop what he referred to as anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Biden, in the order itself, complained about “unrelenting political and legislative attacks at the State level — on LGBTQI+ children and families in particular” that “threaten the civil rights gains of the last half-century and put LGBTQI+ people at risk.”
“These attacks defy our American values of liberty and dignity, corrode our democracy, and threaten basic personal safety,” Biden added in the document. “They echo the criminalization that LGBTQI+ people continue to face in some 70 countries around the world. The Federal Government must defend the rights and safety of LGBTQI+ individuals.”
So Biden, just in case portraying Florida as Saudi Arabia or Iran did not make the point, noted at the signing ceremony that “the ultra-MAGA agenda (is) attacking families and our freedoms.”
“In Florida, going after Mickey Mouse, for God’s sake. That’s striking close to home,” he said.
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Newsmax noted on Monday that at the event Biden was introduced by Javier Gomez, an 18-year-old activist from Florida who organized protests against the law, which he referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and which he called “hateful.”
Yet gays on the right took a different view.
In a statement issued after Biden’s event last Wednesday, the group noted, “It’s unfortunate that President Biden again used a podium at the White House this afternoon to mislead on and demonize the common sense parental rights law in Florida and other similar bills across the country that protect young children from woke lesson plans around gender and sexual identity.”
“While some of the executive orders he announced today are long overdue, LGBT conservatives will not support the federal government trampling over the rights of states to stop Leftist activists from infusing more woke identity politics into kindergarten classrooms.”
“Biden also called on Congress yet again to pass the Equality Act. As we have said before, if President Biden is truly committed to equality and not just cheap lines to score applause from the identity politics crowd, he should instead rally support for the Fairness For All Act, conservative legislation written by conservative lawmakers that actually protects LGBT Americans from discrimination while protecting Americans’ fundamental religious freedoms,” the LCR statement continued.
In a separate interview, LCR President Charles Moran criticized Gomez’s remarks about Florida’s law.
“They’re waxing on Ron DeSantis and the Florida parental rights bill, which they continue to misname,” Moran told the Examiner.
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“It was somewhat comical that the high schooler they brought up there, who talked about his being in school in Florida and organizing those walkouts, that student isn’t even affected by the legislation.”
“There’s a difference between conversations and curriculum,” Moran added. “Conversations are not prohibited.”
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