According to an article in Politico, last Thursday night, hundreds of guests in tuxedos of all styles, and colorful gowns, sipped Trump-branded champagne, and martinis. Between courses of steak and bite-sized Key lime pie, the guests danced to “YMCA” and “Macho Man,” disco anthems written and performed by “The Village People,” a flagrantly “out” homosexual band very popular about 43 years ago.
By the way, “YMCA,” the closest thing to a gay anthem there is (with the possible exception of Queen’s “We are the Champions”) is always played by former president Trump at his rallies, usually as exit music.
Thursday’s “Spirit of Lincoln” gala was in honor of the “Log Cabin Republicans” a pro-homosexual activist group formed 45 years ago. The party, held in the ballroom of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beachfront country club and residence, was a joyous celebration of gay rights and —by coincidence— the historic “Respect for Marriage Act,” obliging the federal government to recognize same-sex marriage, signed into law by President Joe Biden just days earlier, after 12 GOP senators defected and voted with all the Democrat senators (at the urging of the Seventh-day Adventist Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department).
The long-planned event in honor of the Log Cabin Republicans’ 45th anniversary brought in Republican notables like former Ambassador Ric Grenell, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus, who emceed the evening in a feathered turquoise gown, and former GOP gubernatorial candidate from Arizona Kari Lake, who was swarmed by guests eager to meet her and take a photo.
“We are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard,” Former President Trump said. “With the help of many of the people here tonight in recent years, our movement has taken incredible strides, the strides you’ve made here is incredible.”
Throughout the evening, speakers praised Trump for his embrace of the gay community. They credited him for his initiatives to combat the criminalization of homosexuality, his work pushing for public heath initiatives to combat the HIV epidemic, and for appointing the first openly homosexual Cabinet member, Ric Grenell, as DNI, Director of National Intelligence.
Trump did not mention the “Respect for Marriage Act’ in his speech, the passage of which he had nothing to do with, but attendees at the gala praised Trump anyway, noting that he has gone further to secure homosexual rights than most others in the Republican Party.
Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, challenged other 2024 hopefuls to also say they are willing to fight for gay rights.
“I just heard a Republican candidate for president stand up and say he is willing to fight and I challenge every other Republican to make the same pledge Donald Trump made tonight,” Moran said. “I’m going to hold all candidates to that same standard,” he added in a later interview. “We’re really at a place now where we’re going to have an open election and there are going to be other Republicans running, and we have a responsibility to look at the entire Republican field.”
Moran and the Log Cabin Republicans worked behind the scenes to build support for the Respect for Marriage Act and brought at least four GOP members of Congress on board. He noted that House Republican Majority Whip-elect Tom Emmer is an ally of the group and wants to proactively engage on legislation.
Trump joked about his wife, Melania, joining Ric Grenell on a Log Cabin Republicans trip to Beverly Hills last week: “She flew out to California with Ric, and I trusted him 100% with her,” Trump said, to laughs.
Tammy Bruce, a lesbian and conservative commentator and host on the Fox News Channel, was awarded the Log Cabin 2022 “Spirit of Lincoln” award. She talked about challenges she has faced. “I know there are problems still with how we [gays and lesbians] are viewed on occasion. But what I also know is that visibility matters and that bigotry only survives because people only can use their imagination,” she said. “Suddenly things changed when you find out that your son or daughter is gay.”
Commentary:
It is clear that Politico—a far Left outlet, like most of the rest—is publicizing this event in order to try to position Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the more Christian—conservative family values candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024, and thus heighten the division within the Republican Party.
(You’ll see much more of this Trump v. DeSantis positioning from both the Left and the Right in the coming year—the Left because they want to foment a vicious primary fight in the other party, the Right because billions of dollars—enough to buy every conservative media outlet in existence a hundred times over—are at the disposal of anyone who can wrest the Republican Party away from Donald Trump. More about this in a separate piece.)
My purpose in drawing attention to this story is not to bash the former president, nor to imply that DeSantis, or even the Democrats or the “Biden Administration,” are more friendly to religion and family values than the Trump wing of the Republican Party. That is not true, and I would never imply that it is.
But those who think the Trump/MAGA movement is a movement of “Christian Nationalism” need to be confronted with reality, and reality is that while Donald J. Trump is an economic nationalist—he prefers not to see our manufacturing capability off-shored to China, and our entire working class, and indeed most of our middle class, destroyed—he is neither a “Christian Nationalist” nor even particularly Christian in his values (certainly not the sexual ones).
I have been at pains to explain this to the more credulous and anxious conservative Adventists, most recently in a critique I wrote of Nick Miller’s Lake Union article claiming that Trump was a Christian Nationalist. Here are the relevant paragraphs from that piece:
“The politically conservative Christians consist of some Catholics and most evangelical Christians, about 20% of the population. It is true that, in a nation that is divided about 50/50 between Democrats and Republicans, the party that represents conservative Christians cannot afford to ignore them, because that bloc is forty percent of its potential voter pool, and we saw a Trump Administration that was very responsive to Christians’ religious liberty concerns.”
“At the same time, however, Republicans cannot be so beholden to conservative Christians that they lose the other pieces of their coalition, the sixty percent. And, indeed, the Trump Administration, although it discontinued the practice of flying the homosexual “rainbow flag” at U.S. embassies, also appointed a prominent homosexual, Ric Grenell, as Ambassador to Germany, and later as interim Director of National Intelligence, the highest administrative post ever held by an open homosexual. Grenell subsequently became one of Trump’s chief backers and advisors.”
On May 31, 2019, Trump tweeted, "As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month [June] and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison or even execute individuals on the basis of sexual orientation."
“So, although Trump was solicitous of the views of Christians, he was also careful not to alienate his other constituencies, including conservative gays and lesbians. Trump’s administration, like he himself, was far from puritanical or even explicitly Christian.”
Later, I summarized:
As we noted above, President Trump took steps to protect Christians from persecution by the LGBTQ Left, but did nothing to roll back same-sex marriage or gay rights, or to marginalize gays, or to institute a theocracy.
Alas, my critique of Nick Miller’s column was not well received. There is a strong sentiment within the Adventist subculture, especially among conservative Adventists, that it is infidelity, maybe even impiety, to rubbish anyone’s theory as to how the curtains on this world’s history are about to be yanked shut, no matter how crackpot that theory might be—and I cannot now imagine anything more crackpot than the idea that the gay-friendly billionaire playboy Donald J. Trump is a “Christian Nationalist.”
But, weird Adventist subculture not withstanding, facts are stubborn things: Donald Trump is no theocrat longing to establish a Christian theocracy. He is not a “Christian Nationalist.” Those who say otherwise are high on their own supply.