A Log Cabin Republican is getting dragged online after calling Christina Pushaw, press secretary to virulently anti-LGBTQ Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a "gay icon" after she equated LGBTQ people with pedophiles.
DeSantis, one of the most virulently anti-LGBTQ governors in the country, is set to sign into law one of the most regressively homophobic laws in U.S. history, the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, which makes any discussion of gender and sexuality in kindergarten through third-grade grounds for a lawsuit.
In defending the law amid nationwide outcry from LGBTQ people and allies, Pushaw claimed LGBTQ people oppose the law because they are pedophiles, and the law would impinge upon their ability to "groom" children.
To writer David Leatherwood, a gay Republican who writes for the Log Cabin Republicans' newsletter Outspoken, calling gay people pedophiles isn't offensive. Rather, it makes Pushaw a "gay icon."
Read his absurd take below.
In his piece, titled "Christina Pushaw is a gay icon," Leatherwood writes:
“Serving as Press Secretary for America’s favorite Governor, Daddy DeSantis, Pushaw has cemented herself as a gay icon overnight and we are here for all of it."
He then goes on to mischaracterize and outright lie about both the bill and its opponents.
“Earlier this week, leftist gays stormed the Florida Capitol building in the Gay Insurrection of 2022. They were protesting the Parental Rights in Education Bill (branded the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by lying Democrats) and demanding kindergartners have access to state-sanctioned lessons on pronoun propaganda and gay butt sex."
"Christina dropped a bomb that annihilated their entire phony narrative and put them all on defense. She called them what they are: groomers.”
But "lessons on... gay butt sex" do not occur in the bill's target age cohort of kindergarten through third grade in the first place. Much like the legislative furor over banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools--which also is not a thing--the law legislates against a problem that does not exist.
More importantly, the problem lies in the fact that the law explicitly prohibits “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity" but is vague--critics say intentionally so--about what constitutes said discussion. Given the lack of definition, the law as written opens children to lawsuits if they mention their gay parents, to take just one example.
This is why much of the LGBTQ community has been angered by the bill, not because they are pedophiles. But Pushaw, like most Republicans, knows her target demographic is more likely to take her words at face value, so she ran with the pedophilia thing for clout, tweeting:
“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children."
Leatherwood went on to say that "Pushaw’s unapologetic attitude and fierce offensive game"--by which he means her willingness to lie about the bill and justify it by accusing LGBTQ people of having a sexual appetite for children--"proves this woman has big balls.” Ohh-kay then.
As you might guess, Leatherwood's internalized homophobia Twitter moment didn't go over very well.
DeSantis is expected to sign the so-called "Don't Say Gay" legislation into law as written after proposals to clarify its wording were denied.
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