(LifeSiteNews) — Former Trump administration intelligence chief and Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell recently credited “MAGA Republicans” for the “first openly gay Cabinet official,” highlighting the complicated divisions between “anti-establishment” factions on the political Right.
Grenell, who is homosexual and “married” to another man, was responding to a claim by homosexual Star Trek actor George Takei that “MAGA Republicans want to make my marriage to Brad illegal,” and therefore LGBT Americans should vote for Democrats in next week’s midterm elections.
READ: Trump appoints openly gay LGBT activist to director of intelligence agencies
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, leftists have seized upon language in conservative Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion arguing that the Court should also reconsider Obergefell v. Hodges (the 2015 ruling that forced all 50 states to recognize same-sex “marriage”), to stoke fear about the issue in hopes of driving liberal voter turnout. However, there is currently no expectation for a case challenging Obergefell to reach the Court, whether there are five justices willing to overturn remains in question, and national Republicans currently lack any political interest in pressing the issue; 47 House Republicans actually helped Democrats pass a bill to codify same-sex “marriage” in federal law, and it remains to be seen whether ten Senate Republicans will join Democrats in sending the radical bill to President Joe Biden’s desk.
Grenell’s response to Takei went further than noting these facts, however, declaring that “MAGA Republicans produced the first openly gay Cabinet official,” referring to himself, and that the definition of marriage “isn’t an issue”:
MAGA Republicans produced the first openly gay Cabinet official.
This isn’t an issue. We aren’t falling for your phony fear mongering anymore. https://t.co/tlD67JDN00
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 27, 2022
Grenell similarly chided Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), invoking his own appointment as well as that of Patrick Bumatay, an openly-homosexual member of the left-wing Tom Homann LGBT Law Association whom in 2019 former President Donald Trump named to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:
She doesn’t get to pretend like she’s bipartisan when she voted against TWO historic gay appointments – Patrick Bumatay and me.
Does she want her gays to be only left wing Progressives?
Gay isn’t an Ideology, @SenatorHassan. https://t.co/cLbpL6ZEwY
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 25, 2022
The tweets highlight the complicated relationship between conservatism and populism within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. While the 45th president is often seen as a rallying figure for opponents of an unconservative, out-of-touch GOP establishment, those embracing him often do so for different causes from one another – some for a more aggressive, less compromising fiscal and social conservatism, others for a collection of trade, economic, and foreign policy goals at odds with conventional conservative thinking.
Trump himself was generally pro-life and opposed to the transgender agenda as president, but was notably in favor of same-sex “marriage” and was touted by Grenell as “the most pro-gay president in American history.”
Such issues are likely to be a topic of intense discussion over the next two years as Republicans decide whether to nominate Trump for president again in 2024.
READ: Gay director of US National Intelligence pushes to normalize LGBT across spy agencies