Most likely openly gay Republican nominee in 2024

[Ogre Mage]

There will never be an openly LGBTQ Republican Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

This is...way too definitive a statement to make on the issue. (especially since it is LGBTQ and LBTQ)

I am a middle-aged gay man and have lived in the United States for my entire life.  I have experienced homophobia first hand.   And I have had decades to observe the actions of the Republican Party and the attitude of their base.  I stand by my statement.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Rob Smith, the token gay black vet at the Daily Wire.

[afleitch]

Rob Smith, the token gay black vet at the Daily Wire.

The one who hated Trump, wrote for Queerty, disappeared for a few months in 2017 then came back as a funded conservative?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Peter Thiel

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Larry Craig.

[Mr. Matt]

Rob Smith, the token gay black vet at the Daily Wire.

Speaking of that, former Lehigh Co. Commissioner Dean Browning, another gay black Republican, should have a good chance.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There will never be an openly LGBTQ Republican Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

This is...way too definitive a statement to make on the issue. (especially since it is LGBTQ and LBTQ)

I am a middle-aged gay man and have lived in the United States for my entire life.  I have experienced homophobia first hand.   And I have had decades to observe the actions of the Republican Party and the attitude of their base.  I stand by my statement.

Aren't you a young man in your 20s? You are flat-out saying the GOP will never nominate anyone who is any kind of LGBTI in the time period between now and 2070 (assuming you live to average lifespans for an American, high 70s). Really, I don't think that's a believable statement, especially given the fact SSM is uncontested law of the land now and by that token alone you've removed one very major barrier keeping otherwise R-leaning non-straights from considering the party.
Trump gained heavily among LGBTI relative to 2016, didn't he? (at least in the G part)

[Fuzzy Bear]

Ric Grenell

[Ogre Mage]

There will never be an openly LGBTQ Republican Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

This is...way too definitive a statement to make on the issue. (especially since it is LGBTQ and LBTQ)

I am a middle-aged gay man and have lived in the United States for my entire life.  I have experienced homophobia first hand.   And I have had decades to observe the actions of the Republican Party and the attitude of their base.  I stand by my statement.

Aren't you a young man in your 20s? You are flat-out saying the GOP will never nominate anyone who is any kind of LGBTI in the time period between now and 2070 (assuming you live to average lifespans for an American, high 70s). Really, I don't think that's a believable statement, especially given the fact SSM is uncontested law of the land now and by that token alone you've removed one very major barrier keeping otherwise R-leaning non-straights from considering the party.
Trump gained heavily among LGBTI relative to 2016, didn't he? (at least in the G part)

LOL, HELL NO.  The last election I was a "young man in my 20s," Al Gore and George W. Bush were fighting over butterfly ballots and hanging chads in 2000!  

The country has come a long way on gay rights from when I was a young man, but the GOP has not.  The 2016 GOP party platform called same-sex marriage "an assault on the foundations of our society."  The 2020 GOP party platform language maintained its staunch opposition to same-sex marriage and sympathetic language for conversion therapy.

Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society

The platform also supports “the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children,”

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/richard-grenell-addresses-rnc-gop-platform-still-opposes-gay-marriage-n1238272

This is not much different from the crap they were saying about us when I was a young man in 1996 and 2000.  So no, I don't see the GOP nominating an openly LGBTQ person in my lifetime.  The idea is laughable.

Also, the idea that Trump made gains among LGBTQ in 2020 is questionable.

The National Exit Poll reported that 64 percent of LGBT voters favored Biden and 27 percent supported Trump. If that’s true, Trump received the highest percentage of LGBT support any Republican presidential candidate has ever received — and LGBT support for Trump doubled since 2016. However, AP VoteCast found that 73 percent of LGBT voters supported Biden and 25 percent Trump, more in line with years past.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/01/had-lgbt-voters-stayed-home-trump-might-have-won-2020-presidential-election/

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Lascivious Marco comes clean about Wainwright Park and takes the GOP by storm in 2024.

[MarkD]

Are there any Milo Yiannopoulos types in the United States? Because that kind of self-loathing gay man is the only one that the GOP would be interested in nominating.

[The Houstonian]

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There will never be an openly LGBTQ Republican Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

This is...way too definitive a statement to make on the issue. (especially since it is LGBTQ and LBTQ)

I am a middle-aged gay man and have lived in the United States for my entire life.  I have experienced homophobia first hand.   And I have had decades to observe the actions of the Republican Party and the attitude of their base.  I stand by my statement.

Aren't you a young man in your 20s? You are flat-out saying the GOP will never nominate anyone who is any kind of LGBTI in the time period between now and 2070 (assuming you live to average lifespans for an American, high 70s). Really, I don't think that's a believable statement, especially given the fact SSM is uncontested law of the land now and by that token alone you've removed one very major barrier keeping otherwise R-leaning non-straights from considering the party.
Trump gained heavily among LGBTI relative to 2016, didn't he? (at least in the G part)

LOL, HELL NO.  The last election I was a "young man in my 20s," Al Gore and George W. Bush were fighting over butterfly ballots and hanging chads in 2000!  

The country has come a long way on gay rights from when I was a young man, but the GOP has not.  The 2016 GOP party platform called same-sex marriage "an assault on the foundations of our society."  The 2020 GOP party platform language maintained its staunch opposition to same-sex marriage and sympathetic language for conversion therapy.

Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society

The platform also supports “the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children,”

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/richard-grenell-addresses-rnc-gop-platform-still-opposes-gay-marriage-n1238272

This is not much different from the crap they were saying about us when I was a young man in 1996 and 2000.  So no, I don't see the GOP nominating an openly LGBTQ person in my lifetime.  The idea is laughable.

Also, the idea that Trump made gains among LGBTQ in 2020 is questionable.

The National Exit Poll reported that 64 percent of LGBT voters favored Biden and 27 percent supported Trump. If that’s true, Trump received the highest percentage of LGBT support any Republican presidential candidate has ever received — and LGBT support for Trump doubled since 2016. However, AP VoteCast found that 73 percent of LGBT voters supported Biden and 25 percent Trump, more in line with years past.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/01/had-lgbt-voters-stayed-home-trump-might-have-won-2020-presidential-election/

The laughable part isn't the idea the GOP in the recent future would reject the idea out of hand (outside of a Milo Y type). The laughable part is insisting you have a crystal ball that lets you know exactly how things are going to be like over the next 50 years. That's the part I'm quibbling with. It's awash in rank present-ism, projecting attitudes of the present far into the future.
The Jetsons envisioned interstate highways in space as the head of the eponymous household drove his way to work. That is what the future looked like back then. If there is one thing that is most frequently seen in prognostications about the future, it is that they tend to get at least one major thing wrong. The people of 1920 might not have expected what the issues of 1970 were; and the people of 1970 might not have expected what the issues of 2020 were. Why would we be any better at guessing with a high level of confidence what the main issues of 2070 are? Why would we assume with certainty things like LGBT rights stay in the exact same position? That's an indefensible position regardless of one's personal identity, as it would pertain to the debate anyway.

[Del Tachi]

Peter Thiel

This is the correct answer.  Assuming there's not citizenship issues, I think Thiel would be one of the best possible "non-politicians" who could be nominated by the GOP for several decades

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

Jason Smith, congressman from Missouri?  He's definitely fruity.  I doubt a SeMo congressman would every willingly come out, though  

[Alben Barkley]

Peter Thiel

This is the correct answer.  Assuming there's not citizenship issues, I think Thiel would be one of the best possible "non-politicians" who could be nominated by the GOP for several decades

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

Jason Smith, congressman from Missouri?  He's definitely fruity.  I doubt a SeMo congressman would every willingly come out, though  

Thiel is not a natural-born citizen.

[Del Tachi]

Peter Thiel

This is the correct answer.  Assuming there's not citizenship issues, I think Thiel would be one of the best possible "non-politicians" who could be nominated by the GOP for several decades

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

Jason Smith, congressman from Missouri?  He's definitely fruity.  I doubt a SeMo congressman would every willingly come out, though   

Thiel is not a natural-born citizen.

There's an interesting theory that the natural-born citizen clause was implicitly repealed by the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments, since courts have held the equal protection clause protects naturalized U.S. citizens from federal discrimination based on national origin.

Even if we didn't want to go that far, it seems reasonable to suggest that Congress could allow naturalized citizens to run for president by simple statute thanks to the 14th Amendment's Enforcement Clause.

And then, of course, the ultimate backstop would be that the Supreme Court is not ever going to invalidate the election of Peter Thiel (or some other naturalized citizen) if he managed to get on enough state ballots and win enough votes to actually be elected president.  At that point, it's somewhat of a nonjusticiable political question the court wouldn't want to wade into.

[The Houstonian]

Peter Thiel

This is the correct answer.  Assuming there's not citizenship issues, I think Thiel would be one of the best possible "non-politicians" who could be nominated by the GOP for several decades

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

Jason Smith, congressman from Missouri?  He's definitely fruity.  I doubt a SeMo congressman would every willingly come out, though   

Thiel is not a natural-born citizen.

There's an interesting theory that the natural-born citizen clause was implicitly repealed by the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments, since courts have held the equal protection clause protects naturalized U.S. citizens from federal discrimination based on national origin.

Even if we didn't want to go that far, it seems reasonable to suggest that Congress could allow naturalized citizens to run for president by simple statute thanks to the 14th Amendment's Enforcement Clause.

And then, of course, the ultimate backstop would be that the Supreme Court is not ever going to invalidate the election of Peter Thiel (or some other naturalized citizen) if he managed to get on enough state ballots and win enough votes to actually be elected president.  At that point, it's somewhat of a nonjusticiable political question the court wouldn't want to wade into.

I don't think either major party would be willing to nominate someone to a presidential ticket without absolute certainty that they would be eligible to assume their seat should they win.

[Former Crackhead Mike Lindell]

Peter Thiel

This is the correct answer.  Assuming there's not citizenship issues, I think Thiel would be one of the best possible "non-politicians" who could be nominated by the GOP for several decades

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

Jason Smith, congressman from Missouri?  He's definitely fruity.  I doubt a SeMo congressman would every willingly come out, though   

Thiel is not a natural-born citizen.

There's an interesting theory that the natural-born citizen clause was implicitly repealed by the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments, since courts have held the equal protection clause protects naturalized U.S. citizens from federal discrimination based on national origin.

Even if we didn't want to go that far, it seems reasonable to suggest that Congress could allow naturalized citizens to run for president by simple statute thanks to the 14th Amendment's Enforcement Clause.

And then, of course, the ultimate backstop would be that the Supreme Court is not ever going to invalidate the election of Peter Thiel (or some other naturalized citizen) if he managed to get on enough state ballots and win enough votes to actually be elected president.  At that point, it's somewhat of a nonjusticiable political question the court wouldn't want to wade into.

I don't think either major party would be willing to nominate someone to a presidential ticket without absolute certainty that they would be eligible to assume their seat should they win.

I wonder when this issue would be kicked up to the Supreme Court. I'd assume it'd be when it comes to putting the name on ballots, and that'd happen during the primaries.

[Ogre Mage]

There will never be an openly LGBTQ Republican Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

This is...way too definitive a statement to make on the issue. (especially since it is LGBTQ and LBTQ)

I am a middle-aged gay man and have lived in the United States for my entire life.  I have experienced homophobia first hand.   And I have had decades to observe the actions of the Republican Party and the attitude of their base.  I stand by my statement.

Aren't you a young man in your 20s? You are flat-out saying the GOP will never nominate anyone who is any kind of LGBTI in the time period between now and 2070 (assuming you live to average lifespans for an American, high 70s). Really, I don't think that's a believable statement, especially given the fact SSM is uncontested law of the land now and by that token alone you've removed one very major barrier keeping otherwise R-leaning non-straights from considering the party.
Trump gained heavily among LGBTI relative to 2016, didn't he? (at least in the G part)

LOL, HELL NO.  The last election I was a "young man in my 20s," Al Gore and George W. Bush were fighting over butterfly ballots and hanging chads in 2000!  

The country has come a long way on gay rights from when I was a young man, but the GOP has not.  The 2016 GOP party platform called same-sex marriage "an assault on the foundations of our society."  The 2020 GOP party platform language maintained its staunch opposition to same-sex marriage and sympathetic language for conversion therapy.

Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society

The platform also supports “the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children,”

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/richard-grenell-addresses-rnc-gop-platform-still-opposes-gay-marriage-n1238272

This is not much different from the crap they were saying about us when I was a young man in 1996 and 2000.  So no, I don't see the GOP nominating an openly LGBTQ person in my lifetime.  The idea is laughable.

Also, the idea that Trump made gains among LGBTQ in 2020 is questionable.

The National Exit Poll reported that 64 percent of LGBT voters favored Biden and 27 percent supported Trump. If that’s true, Trump received the highest percentage of LGBT support any Republican presidential candidate has ever received — and LGBT support for Trump doubled since 2016. However, AP VoteCast found that 73 percent of LGBT voters supported Biden and 25 percent Trump, more in line with years past.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/01/had-lgbt-voters-stayed-home-trump-might-have-won-2020-presidential-election/

The laughable part isn't the idea the GOP in the recent future would reject the idea out of hand (outside of a Milo Y type). The laughable part is insisting you have a crystal ball that lets you know exactly how things are going to be like over the next 50 years. That's the part I'm quibbling with. It's awash in rank present-ism, projecting attitudes of the present far into the future.
The Jetsons envisioned interstate highways in space as the head of the eponymous household drove his way to work. That is what the future looked like back then. If there is one thing that is most frequently seen in prognostications about the future, it is that they tend to get at least one major thing wrong. The people of 1920 might not have expected what the issues of 1970 were; and the people of 1970 might not have expected what the issues of 2020 were. Why would we be any better at guessing with a high level of confidence what the main issues of 2070 are? Why would we assume with certainty things like LGBT rights stay in the exact same position? That's an indefensible position regardless of one's personal identity, as it would pertain to the debate anyway.

It is bizarre that you keep using that 2070 date.  As I have stated multiple times, I am not a young man in my 20s.  Statistically speaking, it is very unlikely I will still be alive then.

The average lifespan for an American man is around 78 years old.  But let's be optimistic and assume future health care advances have pushed that number in the low 80s.  Given that, I would probably be dead by 2060.

So based on the averages, we could speculate that the last presidential election I will participate in is 2056.  Who here thinks the GOP will nominate an openly LGBTQ person for president by then?   I wish I could bet $1000 that will not happen.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

There will never be an openly LGBTQ Republican Presidential nominee in my lifetime.

This is...way too definitive a statement to make on the issue. (especially since it is LGBTQ and LBTQ)

I am a middle-aged gay man and have lived in the United States for my entire life.  I have experienced homophobia first hand.   And I have had decades to observe the actions of the Republican Party and the attitude of their base.  I stand by my statement.

Aren't you a young man in your 20s? You are flat-out saying the GOP will never nominate anyone who is any kind of LGBTI in the time period between now and 2070 (assuming you live to average lifespans for an American, high 70s). Really, I don't think that's a believable statement, especially given the fact SSM is uncontested law of the land now and by that token alone you've removed one very major barrier keeping otherwise R-leaning non-straights from considering the party.
Trump gained heavily among LGBTI relative to 2016, didn't he? (at least in the G part)

LOL, HELL NO.  The last election I was a "young man in my 20s," Al Gore and George W. Bush were fighting over butterfly ballots and hanging chads in 2000! 

The country has come a long way on gay rights from when I was a young man, but the GOP has not.  The 2016 GOP party platform called same-sex marriage "an assault on the foundations of our society."  The 2020 GOP party platform language maintained its staunch opposition to same-sex marriage and sympathetic language for conversion therapy.

Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society

The platform also supports “the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children,”

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/richard-grenell-addresses-rnc-gop-platform-still-opposes-gay-marriage-n1238272

This is not much different from the crap they were saying about us when I was a young man in 1996 and 2000.  So no, I don't see the GOP nominating an openly LGBTQ person in my lifetime.  The idea is laughable.

Also, the idea that Trump made gains among LGBTQ in 2020 is questionable.

The National Exit Poll reported that 64 percent of LGBT voters favored Biden and 27 percent supported Trump. If that’s true, Trump received the highest percentage of LGBT support any Republican presidential candidate has ever received — and LGBT support for Trump doubled since 2016. However, AP VoteCast found that 73 percent of LGBT voters supported Biden and 25 percent Trump, more in line with years past.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/01/had-lgbt-voters-stayed-home-trump-might-have-won-2020-presidential-election/

The laughable part isn't the idea the GOP in the recent future would reject the idea out of hand (outside of a Milo Y type). The laughable part is insisting you have a crystal ball that lets you know exactly how things are going to be like over the next 50 years. That's the part I'm quibbling with. It's awash in rank present-ism, projecting attitudes of the present far into the future.
The Jetsons envisioned interstate highways in space as the head of the eponymous household drove his way to work. That is what the future looked like back then. If there is one thing that is most frequently seen in prognostications about the future, it is that they tend to get at least one major thing wrong. The people of 1920 might not have expected what the issues of 1970 were; and the people of 1970 might not have expected what the issues of 2020 were. Why would we be any better at guessing with a high level of confidence what the main issues of 2070 are? Why would we assume with certainty things like LGBT rights stay in the exact same position? That's an indefensible position regardless of one's personal identity, as it would pertain to the debate anyway.

It is bizarre that you keep using that 2070 date.  As I have stated multiple times, I am not a young man in my 20s.  Statistically speaking, it is very unlikely I will still be alive then.

The average lifespan for an American man is around 78 years old.  But let's be optimistic and assume future health care advances have pushed that number in the low 80s.  Given that, I would probably be dead by 2060.

So based on the averages, we could speculate that the last election I will participate in is 2056.  Who here thinks the GOP will nominate an openly LGBTQ person for president by then?   It is a pity I cannot bet $1000 that will not happen.

I wrote that up just before I was going to hit the hay, so I didn't bother to check the years in question. My point still stands undiminished if you swab out 2070 with 2050 or whatever.

[Alben Barkley]

Peter Thiel

This is the correct answer.  Assuming there's not citizenship issues, I think Thiel would be one of the best possible "non-politicians" who could be nominated by the GOP for several decades

Probably someone who has yet to come out.

Jason Smith, congressman from Missouri?  He's definitely fruity.  I doubt a SeMo congressman would every willingly come out, though   

Thiel is not a natural-born citizen.

There's an interesting theory that the natural-born citizen clause was implicitly repealed by the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments, since courts have held the equal protection clause protects naturalized U.S. citizens from federal discrimination based on national origin.

Even if we didn't want to go that far, it seems reasonable to suggest that Congress could allow naturalized citizens to run for president by simple statute thanks to the 14th Amendment's Enforcement Clause.

And then, of course, the ultimate backstop would be that the Supreme Court is not ever going to invalidate the election of Peter Thiel (or some other naturalized citizen) if he managed to get on enough state ballots and win enough votes to actually be elected president.  At that point, it's somewhat of a nonjusticiable political question the court wouldn't want to wade into.

I don’t think that theory would hold up under scrutiny. I think any candidate who was not born on US soil AND was not born to citizen parents AND only became a naturalized citizen later in life (this all applies to Thiel) would immediately be challenged in courts and likely this would keep him off the ballots entirely, so it wouldn’t even be an issue of saying someone who won the vote couldn’t take office. I just think this is a massive reach.

And I say this as someone who strongly opposes the natural-born citizen cause and thinks it’s arbitrary, antiquated, and unfair. But it would almost certainly take a Constitutional amendment clearly overturning it to get rid of it.

[Ogre Mage]

I wrote that up just before I was going to hit the hay, so I didn't bother to check the years in question. My point still stands undiminished if you swab out 2070 with 2050 or whatever.

35 years is not so distant a period that projections cannot be made.  I work with government publications.  It is done.  I was also alive and aware of what was going on 35 years ago in 1985.  I have seen how society has changed and how it has not.

The Republican Party has not nominated a nonwhite or female candidate for president yet.  Those are easier feats to accomplish than nominating an openly LGBTQ candidate.  There is a much larger pool of candidates and population from those groups.  The movements for rights for those groups are older and more established.  That is why the Democratic Party has already broken those barriers.  But the Republican Party has yet to meet even these relatively easier landmarks.  And they are going to nominate an openly LGBTQ candidate in the next three decades?

You can't just wave a wand and nominate a barrier breaker for president.  It takes decades of hard work and incremental progress by activists in the party.  Gay Republicans have gone decades without making significant changes in the party platform.  There are no openly gay GOP senators or governors.  There is a small population to draw from.  There is no reason to believe this will happen.

[morgankingsley]

Aren't you a young man in your 20s?

Well he did make his account in 2007, so that alone would make that guess extremely unlikely

[Gustaf]

The Republican base remains way too homophobic. Not necessarily in a religious way, I'm sure someone like Trump doesn't really hate gays. But those people still don't respect gay people enough to ever want one for president.

Republicans enjoy cruelty too much to ever really want anyone who isn't a white man for president.