Thank you for being less incendiary, I appreciate it!

Yes, the Republican Party has been more staunchly traditional with its views of things like gay marriage, but the premise of Republicans being “THE party of homophobia and hate” is disingenuous from MANY angles.

Fact is, this 2016 platform is barely distinguishable from the policies that the left enacted in the 90s under people like Clinton, and continued as late as Obama’s stance early in his presidency.

The left has evolved just as the right has on these issues. The parties have been a handful of years apart in this regard at most, but the left is allowed, with the help of the media, to freely shed its past with flimsy justification at best, while the crudest voices of the right are amplified and made to appear as representative of the entire party.

Even the linked NPR article admits that Trump is more moderate on these issues, and judging from the makeup of the most recent CPAC, the direction of the party towards social libertarianism with limited government involvement couldn’t be more clear.

But the media tries to prevent that progress from happening in the party, both by deceiving its readers into believing Trump is Hitler, by cherry-picking voices on the right that clearly differ from how the party has evolved, while also gaslighting its readers on the left’s own troubled past.

Secondly, the notion that every LGBTQ or other minority status must be a single issue voter hyper focused on their supposed minority identity is itself a bit offensive, yet pushed by the left.

If you face homelessness as a kid as a result of government policies, suddenly you don’t have the luxury of caring about whether you can legally marry.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually very grateful for the cultural acceptance that the left has helped push towards LGBTQ causes, amongst others.

But for all of the cultural acceptance they’ve helped achieve, they have their share of policies that I feel continue to harm.

For example, I have no interest in forcing a bakery to bake me a cake. My only interest is that I also be legally allowed to open my own bakery that openly supports everyone. But I’ve been co-opted into this fight, whether I like it or not.

Which leads me to my final point, which is the notion that every issue is so black and white that everyone neatly fits into the “good” box or the “evil” box.

Both sides have perpetrated this division for their own needs, but I refuse to play into it.

For as much as the left has helped the culture change to accept me, they have equally helped push the notion that I can’t have nuanced views of marriage, of a bakery’s choice of service, and of government assistance policies.

We’re all either marching in the parade, or we’re nazis.

This leads to the very statement you initially made - a clear, binary choice, with one side advocating for the elimination of my entire existence, and the other, a utopia of acceptance and love.

Which in turn leads to the kind of dehumanizing, violent rhetoric I hear regularly at work from the supposed side of tolerance, who remind me that it might be ok if I “came out” as LGBTQ at work, but make it abundantly clear that my job, and likely my own safety, would be at risk if I ever “came
out” as a Trump supporter.

If I take their “jokes” about re-education camps and forced sterlizarion and physical beatings seriously, that is.

Sorry, long winded response, but I have few outlets and I very much appreciate your efforts towards a conversation!