Evangelicals melt down over GOP’s embrace of same-sex marriage

The Republican Party's decision to wave the "white flag" on same-sex marriage has left evangelicals fuming, according to a new report from Politico.

After Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel posted a tweet in support of LGBTQ rights this year, social conservatives "furiously dialed up McDaniel with complaints."

"Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, lambasted her in a scathing blog post and even encouraged people not to donate to the RNC. But the attacks, particularly from the evangelical right, were met with a shrug by the party," Politico reports.

GOP leaders' willingness to brush off criticism from Perkins and other social conservatives — a key part of the their base — reflects the party's "evolution" on the issue of same-sex marriage, according to Politico.

"Party leaders still exhibit strong opposition to transgender rights and the top legislative priorities of the LGBTQ community. But on the most prominent battlefield of the past few decades, same-sex marriage, they've all but conceded defeat," the story notes.

Gay Republicans cite former president Donald Trump's nomination in 2016 as a "breakthrough" moment for their movement — even though his record on LGBTQ rights was "mixed at best."

Members of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, point to the fact that Trump was a "cosmopolitan business person," didn't prioritize anti-LGBTQ wedge issues during his campaign and made appeals to gay voters — even mentioning them during his 2016 convention speech.

Charles Moran, a spokesperson for Log Cabin, told Politico: "For the first time we got to walk into the race with a candidate we didn't have to apologize for or explain away his reluctance to embrace the gay community. Probably Reagan was the last candidate where we were like 'this candidate has gay friends."

This year, the Log Cabin Republicans plan to hold their annual event at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, and the former president or a member of his family likely to be the headliner.

"But Trump also opposed the Equality Act — which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit anti-LGBTQ and sex discrimination in public accommodations and federal programs — appointed judges deemed hostile to LGBTQ issues, rolled back protections in the workplace for non-binary workers, and pushed for the removal of protections for LGBTQ people in healthcare programs," Politico notes. "The Trump-era Education Department eliminated guidance that sought to extend protections around the treatment of transgender students,' the story notes. "And Trump himself issued an executive order, via tweet, prohibiting transgender individuals from serving in the military — a move later overturned by President Joe Biden."

Read the full story here.