By John Gallagher
Tonight will be the third and final presidential debate. All eyes will be on Donald Trump, yet again, to see if he has any impulse control left. We’re so inured to Trump’s outrageousness that if he is even marginally lucid, he’s likely to come across far better than he should.
As a reminder, sometimes debates actually touch on (gasp!) policy. And what has been particularly noticeable in this election cycle is how little reference there has been to anything LGBT. Other than a brief reference from Clinton in support of marriage equality during the second debate, the candidates have been largely silent about us.
Which raises the question: are we no longer a political issue? With marriage equality settled in law and public opinion solidly in our favor, the candidates seem to be betting that nothing else rises to the level worth calling out in a debate.
That probably drives core Republicans, including Trump’s running mate Mike Pence, crazy. Much as the GOP leadership promises to repeal Obamacare, the hardliners would love nothing more than to claw back some lost ground through religious liberty laws.
The problem is that Trump couldn’t care less. In general, he doesn’t dwell on policy in any case because he doesn’t understand it. But Trump also doesn’t seem to bear us the animosity that he does immigrants, women or–well, it’s a long list. If anything, he’s broken from the Republican line just by promising to protect the LGBTQ community (in his own weird phrasing). What he doesn’t realize is that we are also a strong part of immigrant groups, women, Muslims, and African-Americans. So when he attacks these groups, he is also attacking all of us–with the possible exception of white gay men.
Without one candidate attacking us and one defending us, there’s not a lot of reason to expect the media to focus on us at all. We’ll see if that changes tonight. But it could be that we’ve moved from being a political issue to just another voting bloc.
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This article originally appeared on Queerty
Photo credit: Getty Images
They hate gays to the same extent that the left hates men.
We admit one, deny the other, and round and round the washing machine goes.
Sometimes I feel like I stand here in the center, as an army of one, enraging both sides, both frustrated because I won’t choose a side.
That’s the scariest thought of all.
..and to all my LGBT brothers and sisters.
Understand that you are valued, but you do not raise the emotional level as high, deter as many votes as such neatly packaged labels as “sexism, and “racism”.
You do not earn enough votes, which should explain to you where you really stand in the order of importance.
We’ll get there, to a place where you are seen as just human, but it’s going to be a long hard walk, sort of like what men (you know, the innate criminal entity that we apparently are), are facing, only longer and tougher.
Trump may be ambivalent to LGBT issues, but the GOP national platform and numerous GOP state platforms clearly state offer unequivocal opposition to LGBT rights. Republican legislators continue to hatch bills to make life difficult for their LGBT constituents. They really, really, really hate queer people and boldly put it into writing and action.
But Hillary DOES support abortion at any stage which means a homophobe parent will be able to able to abort an unborn of she thinks he/she may be gay. Remember, according to Hillary an unborn child at ANY stage has no rights.
But how on earth would a parent make a determination that an unborn child might be gay?
They could not, which is why it’s a ridiculous argument, at least in this context.