When it comes to LGBTQ Americans, the Republican Party has traded its dog whistle in for a train whistle.
This week, for example, during a legislative hearing on a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to use a bathroom that doesn’t match the sex a person was assigned at birth, Florida state Rep. Webster Barnaby called transgender people “demons” and “mutants.”
“The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us,” Barnaby thundered. “That’s right, I called you demons and imps, who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.”
Barnaby quickly apologized. But his comments, like many political gaffes, told an unpleasant truth: that bigotry and open hostility underpin the GOP’s continuing assault on the rights of transgender and other LGBTQ people.
Indeed, Barnaby could take a lesson from Florida’s senior Republican senator, Marco Rubio, in how to use greater subtlety when being bigoted toward gay Americans.
Rubio is suggesting that gay, trans or non-binary service members are simply not tough enough to fight America’s wars.
On Wednesday, Rubio tweeted a short video by Lt. j.g. Audrey Knutson of the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Knutson, who identifies as nonbinary, spoke glowingly about their opportunity to read a poem at an LGBTQ spoken word night while stationed on an aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. According to Knutson: “My grandfather served in the Navy in World War II. He was on board the USS Hornet. And he — it means a lot for me to be able to join the Navy, because he was a gay man in the Navy, and he had a really difficult service. So for me to join as nonbinary is really powerful to me and something that I’m certainly proud of.”
For most Americans, this would be an inspiring story of service to one’s country. If not for the fact Knutson is nonbinary, one could easily imagine Rubio, who has never served in the military, praising…
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