Gay Republican

Hi and welcome. Politics is a touchy subject for a lot of people. And for a good chunk of people in the United States, Republicans have put a bad taste in their mouth. Of course, for a lot of people, so too have Democrats.

 

I thought the right was liberal economically.

 

I don't think gay people ''feel like they have to be liberal'' (you certainly don't), I am liberal because liberal ideas align with my own personal beliefs, the same way I assume you are a republican because you stand behind what republicans stand for.

None of the republican values and beliefs etc... align with mine therefore I could never be a republican if I tried nor if you were to pay me.

I could never be a republican because their stance on immigration, healthcare, women rights, LGBTQ+ rights are appalling and I could NEVER ever support it. Republicans do not see me as an equal, and I would be rather dumb to vote for a party that so clearly looks down on what I represent (queer woman of color, daughter of immigrant, and constant traveler).

Not to be rude as I don't intend to be but if you don't know why most LGBTQ+ people are liberal do you even have a full grasp of the things the republicans generally stand for and are doing/ currently putting in place/trying to put in place and what it means for the LGBTQ+ population as well as other minorities, including you? You might be in a privileged (dare I say!) position to not see your life drastically affected by choices republicans make but most don't have this luxury. Most queer people will fall under another category, if you are a white gay guy who can pass as straight you might get away with it, but most queer people are also POC, women, and people with poor economical resources.

As a woman, I cannot bear to vote for a party who wants to control and dictate my reproductive system
As a woman of color, I cannot vote for a party who loves to stereotype people of color and try so hard to keep the divide and POC at the bottom of the pile (happily ignoring its own history and how they US came about and who it actually belongs to.)
As an immigrant (though you'll be happy to hear I am legally in the US) I cannot vote for a party that is happily separating kids and children, and jailing people for wanting to make a better life for themselves.
As a gay woman: I can't imagine voting for a party that has so many people who despise my existence in its rank and given absolute freedom, would no doubt try and cure me or remove my right to ever get married or parent a child.
As someone who grew up dirt poor, I cannot bear to vote for a party who would willingly take away things like ''Obamacare'' just to make a point, in the knowledge that it will probably leave millions of citizens, stranded without affordable healthcare and dying because the government would rather privatize healthcare than help save the life of its citizens.

If you can go sleep at night, knowing you vote for this and are happy with it, that's great, I would assume most of us can't do it, either for our beliefs or because it would ultimately be voting for a poorer life for ourselves.

I am not being confrontational by the way, I respect your right to be republican and to have your own personal beliefs regarding all those topics, but I am as baffled by a gay republican as you are by a gay liberal

 

I'm left-sided because I feel left-wing policies would benefit me more than right-wing ones. Although I might sometimes pass as a "straight white male" that's just oozing with "privilege," in reality I'm dirt poor, drowning in student debt, and need my healthcare to be subsidized by the government for health conditions I won't discuss in a thread about politics. It is a left-wing position that the government bailout student debt, subsidize college, and make healthcare free as it is in every other developed country on Earth.
You're welcome to disagree with those positions, even many people who identify as left-wing do. However, please consider this: when I was your age at 16(way, way, way back in 2008), the economy crashed and entered a recession. To avoid the recession turning into a "depression" like the Great Depression, the government had to bailout all of the big banks and corporations that had literally gambled with people's life savings and jobs as if they were at a casino. Does it make sense to you that big banks and corporations get a bail out by tax dollars, but hard working people can't? Therein lies the contradiction with Republicans - they claim the poor and working class don't need government handouts to be lifted out of hardship, and yet they are ready to give handouts to the super-rich and mega-corporations at the snap of the fingers.
Much of the Democratic party has been corrupted by money in politics. I personally hope left-wing outsiders like Bernie Sanders will overthrow the Democratic establishment. But even corrupted, "moderate" democratic candidates offer me some form of improvement, whereas with Republicans, it almost always is for the worse. If Republicans had their way, I'd have no healthcare, and I'd be left to die if I needed a medical procedure. The Republican response is always to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," but in my case, it makes little sense. If I dropped out of college, I'd probably only find a minimum wage job that possibly wouldn't even offer health insurance, and then all my money would go towards paying off my student loans. If Republicans could offer just one of my pet-issues, it'd solve much of my problem - bailout my student debt so I can spend my money on food, shelter, and healthcare instead of being harassed on the phone by creditors; make college free so I can at least get a higher paying job and pay it off, I'd only be paying more in taxes; increase the minimum wage to a livable wage, so even if I'm stuck on the bottom, it won't be so bad ... just, anything, anything at all. But no, Republican politicians only preach how they're going to bring back all the factory jobs from overseas, and then when they come back, machines do them.
If I were to somehow become a billionaire, and be the true definition of privilege, I would probably still be left-wing. I might not be a communist, but I would definitely continue my support for the welfare state, because I know not everyone is going to make it in a world that requires money to survive. Plus, I still have cold feelings for the Republican party. I had to grow up watching the Republican party fight tooth and nail trying to stop same-sex marriage from becoming legalized. When I was 19/20, I had the opportunity to vote in the 2016 election, and I had no (rational) choice but to vote for Obama over Romney. Why was that? Because Romney, of the Republican party, didn't just oppose same-sex marriage, he opposed it so bad, he wanted to enshrine in the Constitution an amendment that would outlaw gay marriage. I wasn't even liberal back then, but what was I supposed to do? And worse, Romney wasn't even the worse of the field of Republican candidates that passed through the 2016 primaries.
My political beliefs are subject to change. They have changed, and they probably will change in the future. I encourage you to be open to change.

 

The United States has almost uniquely bonkers politics in the developed world but I want to engage in more functional politics where left-wing people seem to want our politics to function as divisively. I will just point out some very odd (and ultimately tribal) reasoning that occurs, such as saying that because gay people are in some way vulnerable, they must substantively agree with all other vulnerable groups. That is not good reasoning. It often leads to bizarre (and election-losing) consensuses such as the Democrats increasingly believing that there should be no meaningful mechanisms to control migration, which is neither necessarily something queer people need to support nor a particularly coherent belief.

In Australia, the Commonwealth Parliament has 5 gay men. All of them belong to the conservative Liberal party. The left-wing Labor Party and further left greens have no gay men (though Labor has gay women, including its most senior senator), despite fervently claiming to be the champions of LGBT issues, and accusing the Liberals of being hostile to queer issues 'in their DNA'.

There are also reasons many queer people belong to the right that don't remotely relate to queer issues, simply because where discrimination is not a dominant force in someone's life it would be insane to base their politics on what are, at least to them, obsolete grievances. Alternatively, there are very reasonable trade-offs people make - I could never support Australia's Greens because I think they have an enormous blind spot to foreign affairs and national security.

I get incredibly turned off by the cult of solidarity that often defines left-wing politics, even where I'm very sympathetic to particular policies. Very often, that looks like gay groups being strangely hostile to what are actually quite queer-friendly conservative governments for reasons that are ultimately more tribal than based in specific complaints. I often find it signficant that these beliefs come most fervently from people with no relevant lived experience (wealthy university students complaining about income, for example) rather than those who are actually vulnerable and whose contributions are often sidelined by louder, more ideological voices.

I agree with much of this reasoning. Where I often come into conflict is in the extent of its relevance.

From an Australian perspective, it is frankly baffling to me when other Australians generically complain about, for example, 'handouts to the rich' when some 70% of the income tax burden is met by the top two deciles of income-earners and the bottom five either pay no income tax or receive more in support than they pay. The reality is that the moral burden of assisting the vulnerable has already been met by the economic system of (most) advanced democracies. Fighting over its existence is frequently a moot battle that strokes the egos of those who shout the loudest, rather than an earnest attempt to fix flaws.

In a massively redistributive system that has pretty universal support, the battle lines should intead be drawn over the extent of government programs, rather than the fiction that only the left believes in welfare. Even if you're not of the centre-right, it's useful to keep that in mind, because if you want to pursue change you can't just mischaracterise the world you live in.

 

I am not Republican. To separate a child from a parent is beyond cruel. In the civilized world, I therefore identify as a Democrat.

 

I started Republican as a teen and have slowly slid left as I aged. Partly because I think Republican ideas on healthcare are a failure. Partly because Republicans (in my lifetime) have consistently promised to balance budgets and then spiked spending every time they’ve gotten power. Partly because they have so many homophobic people who fight lgbt rights at every turn. Partly because I’m tired of the crackpot conspiracy theories that never turn out to be true upon inspection. And in the era of Trump, now because of the rampant cruelty, constant lying, and corruption they’ve spent the last 3 years propping up. After what I’ve witnessed over the last 3 years, I won’t vote for a Republican for dog catcher until this generation of the GOP has been wiped out electorally and maybe just maybe they get new people who have morals and a spine. But, that’s just me.

 

Republicans are stagnant relics of a time that is no longer relevant, they say "work harder" and think everything will be okay for those who do and support the mega-rich bourgeoisie. Democrats are spineless wimps who don't really stand for anything so they'll fall for anything and waste everybody's time with their incessant whining and are just as corrupt as Republicans but better at hiding it. I left the one party/two faction system awhile ago and haven't looked back. I am no longer registered as a Republican or a Democrat, though at one point or another I was one or the other. I do not vote in the primaries and only vote in general elections even though I know that it does nothing because if voting really worked, the government wouldn't let us do it. The truth of the matter is that the United States is far more crippled and corrupted than the Soviet Union was under Stalin, but because we have rich people, they pretend that it isn't.

 

Homophobia is not a crime. It's ignorant, sure, but to label homophobia a crime is stupid and dangerous and bordering on totalitarian. People have the basic human right to believe whatever they want to believe no matter how idiotic their beliefs might be.

 

I'm not arguing that homophobia is a problem, but to label it a crime is wrong. People should be entitled to think however they want to think, no matter how ignorant. Saying "Oh, the way you think is a crime" is a very Orwellian way of thinking. I mean, how are you even going to maintain this law against homophobia? Do you have a series of oracles reading everybody's mind, picking out people who are homophobic and zeroing in on them, sending out thought police to arrest them just because they don't like gay people? That's dangerous and stupid. Let people think whatever they want to think. Maybe put a law in place that prevents them from physically harming other people based on what they think, but don't try to "re-educate" people. If straight people think we're trying to alter the way they think based on forced laws like this, it's no wonder they hate us. And if we're making laws to prevent them from thinking one way or another, they should hate us.

 

I personally don’t associate with either party. As in, when I vote, I learn as much as I can about the people running, and vote accordingly regardless of political party. I personally believe we need a balance of Democrats and Republicans in the government to represent the diversity of the people and make the best decisions for the country as a whole. However, it’s clear to see why many gay people would prefer democratic views as most Republicans I’ve seen are not supportive of LGBT+ individuals. I want to one day marry and adopt. But as a lesbian, many Republicans oppose of this. Not to mention the discrimination in the work force and military. It’s hard to find a republican in the government who would act in the best interest of the LGBT community.

 

It's never the freedom of thought that is criminalized, it's carrying an homophobic act that is penalized. I am from Europe in a country where homophobia is a crime, as is racism, and no, we won't arrest you for thinking less of gay or people of color but if you try to harm gay or people of color based on your belief that they are ''lesser'' or ''deserve less rights'' or try to convince other people to hurt gay folks or POC based on your beliefs, you will be arrested and charged.

It's not forcing people to change their mind, it's letting them know that while they can have their own personal beliefs, their beliefs should not impact the life of others (you can't fire a gay person on the basis that they are gay and can't refuse to hire someone on the basis that they are black for example) nor their safety.

The same way that while I don't like racists or homophobes and I am free to dislike them, if I was to try and convince others to harm them I would get arrested on the same basis.

We have a saying in my country that explains our laws which is ''your freedom ends where the ones of others starts'' (which means that you are free to do as you want as long as your freedom doesn't limit the ones of others)

 

Getting back on topic, After Donald Trump (who I voted for because I was stone-drunk, listening to Alex Jones and believed Pizzagate at the time), I will never vote for another Republican again. I don't care how well they present themselves. And believe me, it makes me sick to have to vote for some of the Democrats out there because they're just as bad as some Republicans, so I have to remind myself that voting doesn't really count anyway because if it did they wouldn't let us do it and I'm just taking part in a placebo. Trump isn't even a Republican, he's a Democrat who ran as a Republican and is catering to the worst aspects of the GOP because it keeps his voter base happy. The shadow council has already decided the next president, whether that's Trump (which it probably will be) or Biden (a right-wing establishment corporate owned Democrat) I can't say. But even though voting does NOTHING, I'll still vote for the Democrats because they're the closest thing to being on my side there is.

 

Um...then you should be never voting for Democrats again, not Republicans, if Trump is really a Democrat (he's actually nothing, if you look at his record he's switched to whatever the opposite of the current President is since the 80's. He just likes being in the opposite party so he can complain). He was a Democrat the entire time under Bush and a Republican under Obama.

Obviously not true otherwise there wouldn't be problems like Bush and Gore having to request a recount in Florida because of the election being so close.

So despite knowing you believed in a completely insane conspiracy theory and were wrong, you choose to believe in an even more insane conspiracy theory that is even less likely to be true. Do you not see a problem with that logic?