LGBTQ conservatism in the United States
LGBTQ+ conservatism in the United States is a social and political ideology within the LGBTQ+ community that largely aligns with the American conservative movement. LGBTQ+ conservatism is generally more moderate on social issues than social conservatism, instead emphasizing values associated with fiscal conservatism, libertarian conservatism, and neoconservatism.
History
Pre-Stonewall Era
Following World War II, fears of Communist infiltration into American national security institutions combined with pervasive homophobia led both conservative and liberal politicians to endorse policies to remove homosexuals from administrative and military positions within the American government. The same fears led to ideological divisions within early homophile movement organizations such as the Mattachine Society.Mid-20th-century homophile activists, who pursued civil rights for gays and lesbians in the United States, were primarily informed by Marxist political ideology and had ties to the Communist Party of the United States. During an era dominated by anti-communist rhetoric, governmental, and social ideological policing, homophile movement organizations experienced pressure to deny communist affiliations. For the Mattachine Society, the divisions publicly erupted in 1953, when, at the organization's "Constitutional Convention," a majority of the delegates supported resolutions to disavow 'leftist' ideologies and elect new leaders without ties to the Communist Party.
Ideological divides were also reflected in homophile activism strategies. Often described as a dichotomy using the terms "assimilationist" and "liberationist," each designation refers to a style of activism used in achieving civil rights for sexual minorities. Assimilationist political strategies, otherwise defined as "insider" strategies, reflect a willingness to work within the structures and institutions of a particular political system and include activities such as lobbying or litigation. Liberationist strategies, otherwise defined as "outsider" strategies, reflect an unwillingness to engage in institutions that perpetuate systems of social or political oppression and include such activities as protests or demonstrations. Assimilationist strategies typically focus on elite targets – lawmakers, bureaucrats, judges, medical professionals, etc. – and therefore assume an individual or organization possesses the political, social, or economic capital necessary to engage these actors. This, and the focus on maintaining rather than disrupting existing political institutions, characterize assimilationist strategies as conservative. Even when homophile activists led by Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and members of the East Coast Homophile Organizations adopted outsider strategies, such as pickets at the White House, according to the film Before Stonewall, participants were admonished to dress professionally and wear clothing complementary to traditional gender presentations. Such divides, contingent upon movement strategies or policy priorities, yet maintaining a focus on civil rights for sexual minorities, persist in contemporary LGBTQ+ political debates.
During this era, no major political party openly supported civil rights for gays and lesbians. Although Harry Hay, the founder of Mattachine had also established an organization with the tongue-in-cheek name "American Bachelors for Wallace" – auspiciously supporting Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party candidate for president in 1948 – it was not because the party openly supported gay and lesbian rights. The United States military had a long history of discriminatory treatment of gay and lesbian service members, and after becoming president, Dwight Eisenhower – elected as a Republican – signed Executive Order 10450 which had the effect of barring gays and lesbians from administrative service in the federal government. Even close associates of the president were not exempt from investigation. In the year before signing the executive order, Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. was named Eisenhower's Appointments Secretary. On January 13, 1953, however, a week before Eisenhower's inauguration, the White House announced that Vandenberg was taking a leave of absence for health reasons. In April, the same month Executive Order 10450 was signed, he resigned from his position blaming "an attack of stomach ulcers." He told the press that he was uncertain of his prognosis and "the uncertainty was unfair to the President." It was later revealed that J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had come into possession of information that implicated Vandenberg in the bureau's Sex Deviants Program.
Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy included suspected homosexuals in his investigation into communist infiltration of the American Government. An exchange between witnesses during a series of hearings in 1954 implied the presence of homosexuals in the U.S. military and referred to them using the derogatory terminology "pixie" and "fairy".
Post-Stonewall Era
While early homophile activists primarily pursued a politics of social assimilation, shared perceptions of social problems such as violence and physical assault, employment discrimination, police entrapment, and harassment of businesses catering to gay and lesbian clientele helped solidify a sexual minority identity throughout the 1950s and 1960s. By the end of the latter decade, LGBTQ+ politics was on the brink of a paradigm shift. The most widely-known example of the liberationist perspective in practice is exemplified by the Stonewall Riots. However, such tactics were deployed as early as the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959 in response to police harassment of LGBTQ+ people. The events taking place in New York's West Village throughout late June 1969 had far-reaching repercussions and further exacerbated the divide between those holding assimilationist and liberationist ideologies.The Gay Liberationist and Lesbian Feminist Movements took shape in the decade of the 1970s. Gender-based tensions fueled by sexism within male-dominated organizations associated with the Gay Liberation Movement led to the formation of a separate Lesbian Feminist Movement that advocated for both gender and sexual equality. Despite the liberationist protest and demonstrative tactics of Gay Liberation Movement organizations, they were dominated by a single-issue advocacy strategy which contributed to the identity politics approach of later 20th and 21st-century LGBTQ+ rights organizations.
In 1972, San Francisco's Gay Activists Alliance disbanded and formed the Gay Voter's League, a group that campaigned for the reelection of President Richard Nixon In October 1972, a representative of the Committee to Re-elect the President addressed gay voters on behalf of Richard M. Nixon's campaign in San Francisco. The event was organized by the Gay Voters League of San Francisco.
The first chapter of what would become the national Log Cabin Republicans was formed in 1978 to fight California's Briggs Initiative, a ballot initiative that would have banned homosexuals from teaching in public schools. The chapter worked diligently and successfully convinced Governor Ronald Reagan to publicly oppose the measure.
During the 1984 United States House of Representatives Republican primary for Iowa's 4th congressional district, Rich Eychaner became the first openly gay candidate for federal office in the United States but lost the primary to Robert R. Lockard.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Michael A. Hess was a lawyer, deputy chief legal counsel and later chief legal counsel to the Republican National Committee. He was an important figure in the redistricting battles during the 1990 United States census and was admired for his integrity and pursuit of justice on this issue.
Presidency of Ronald Reagan
On the 1980 campaign trail, Reagan said of gay civil rights movements,No civil rights legislation for LGBTQ+ individuals was passed during Reagan's tenure. Additionally, Reagan has been criticized by some LGBTQ+ groups for allegedly ignoring the growing AIDS epidemic, even as it took thousands of lives in the 1980s. Reagan's Surgeon General from 1982 to 1989, Dr. C. Everett Koop, claimed that his attempts to address the issue were shut out by the Reagan Administration. According to Koop, the prevailing view of the Reagan Administration was that the "transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs" and therefore that people dying from AIDS were "only getting what they justly deserve".
On August 18, 1984, President Reagan issued a statement on the issue of same-sex unions that read,
Reagan made the comment in response to a questionnaire from the conservative publishers of the Presidential Biblical Scoreboard, a magazine-type compilation of past statements and voting records of national candidates.
In 1988, the Republican Party's nominee, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, endorsed a plan to protect persons with AIDS from discrimination.
Presidency of George H. W. Bush
As President, George H. W. Bush signed legislation that extended gay rights. On April 23, 1990, Bush signed the Hate Crime Statistics Act, which requires the Attorney General to collect data on crimes committed because of the victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. It was the first federal statute to "recognize and name gay, lesbian and bisexual people".On November 29, 1990, Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which withdrew the phrase "sexual deviation" from the Immigration and Nationality Act so that it could no longer be used as a basis for barring entry of immigration to the U.S. for homosexuals.
In a television interview, Bush said if he found out his grandchild was gay, he would "love his child", but tell him homosexuality was not normal and discourage him from working for gay rights. In February 1992, the chairman of the Bush-Quayle campaign met with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. In May 1992, he appointed Anne-Imelda Radice to serve as the Acting Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Losing ground in the 1992 Republican presidential primary to President Bush's far-right challenger, Pat Buchanan, the Bush campaign turned to the right, and President Bush publicly denounced same-sex marriage. The 1992 Log Cabin Republican convention was held in Spring, Texas, a Houston exurb. The main issue discussed was whether or not LCR would endorse the re-election of President George H. W. Bush. The group voted to deny that endorsement because Bush did not denounce anti-gay rhetoric at the 1992 Republican National Convention. Many in the gay community believed President Bush had not done enough on the issue of AIDS. Urvashi Vaid argues that Bush's anti-gay rhetoric "motivated conservative gay Democrats and loyal gay Republicans, who had helped defeat Dukakis in 1988, to throw their support behind Clinton".
In 1992, the City Council of the District of Columbia passed "The Health Benefits Expansion Act", which was signed into law by the Mayor of Washington, D.C. The bill, which established domestic partnerships in the District of Columbia, became law on June 11, 1992. Every year from 1992 to 2000, the Republican leadership of the U.S. Congress added a rider to the District of Columbia appropriations bill that prohibited the use of federal or local funds to implement the Health Care Benefits Expansion Act. On October 5, 1992, Bush signed H.R. 6056 into law, which included the Republican rider to the appropriations bill.
The 1992 Republican Party platform adopted support for continuing to exclude homosexuals from the military as a matter of good order and discipline. The 1992 Republican Party platform also opposed including sexual preference in anti-discrimination statutes.