How a Gay Republican Sees the Rise in Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Rhetoric on the Right
When I talked to the political commentator Brad Polumbo, he told me that he wished America could go back to the L.G.B.T.Q. politics of a few years ago, a time he sees as a time of “détente” on gay rights issues among conservatives.
Mr. Polumbo is a podcaster who leans Republican, and he is also gay. In his view, his sexual orientation didn’t matter much to conservatives during the Trump administration.
That’s changed, according to Mr. Polumbo, because “both sides” of the fight over L.G.B.T.Q. rights “overreach.” “I think the progress that people before me put so much blood, sweat and tears into — to achieve acceptance and normalization — is not guaranteed to stay with us,” he told me.
Mr. Polumbo believes that excess on the part of left-leaning L.G.B.T.Q. activists has created an opportunity for people on the right who never stopped being anti-gay.
