I often ask LGBT Republicans why they vote for the GOP despite the GOP’s open hostility towards LGBT people. The answer is usually something along the lines of “I’m not a single issue voter!” Well, let’s look at that utter nonsense, shall we?

Economically, since 1980, tax rates on the wealthy have steadily fallen due to Republican influence. If tax cuts created jobs, we should be swimming in them, but we’re not. Instead, as the chart on the right shows, Republican led economics, since 1980, have led to the shrinking of the middle class. It’s a documented fact that the economy always does better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.

Then there’s the deficit. Republicans love to scream about the deficit. But who are the only presidents in the last 50 years to reduce the deficit? Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats.

And discussion of the deficit leads to discussion of the national debt. Who tripled the national debt? Ronald Reagan. Who was on course to double the national debt before he lost a second term? The elder George Bush. Who did double the national debt? The younger George Bush. And the younger George Bush did that with a completely Republican Congress after being handed a balanced budget that was paying down the national debt under Bill Clinton.

How, in the face of these facts, can any person believe anything the GOP says about economics? HOW? What sort of twisted mental outlook does it take to lie to yourself to convince yourself that you should vote for these failures and liars?

Republicans scream about Obama issuing executive orders, but he’s issued the lowest annual rate of executive orders since Grover Cleveland! Here is a chart showing the number of executive orders issued per year and Obama in no way issues more than Republicans. So that’s another lie.

And the orders Obama has issued have largely been because Republicans have refused to work with a president elected by massive popular vote as a means of punishing the entire nation for daring to reject their right wing extremist views!

When do you, as Republicans, stop and look at reality and realize that it is your party that is being obstructionist? That it is your party that is exhibiting every sign of racism imaginable? That it is your party that wants to institutionalize bigotry against LGBT people’s civil rights as some sort of “religious freedom”?

So economically, everything about the GOP has been a lie and destructive to you, the middle class voter. Every single thing. Have they been right ever about anything? Can Republicans ever even tell the truth economically?

Then there’s the false bogeyman of “gun control”. LGBT people who vote based on this single issue wrongfully claim that Democrats want to ban all guns. Nothing could be further from the truth. Howard Dean made the case several years ago that extremism (notice that word?) about gun control was a losing political issue, so the Democratic party looked at that and realized it was true, and walked away from that. Yet the Republicans still try to throw that charge against Democrats even as they try to ignore mass shooting after mass shooting. Even as they try to ignore massive levels of gun violence among our poor (and largely minority) communities. Yet the GOP continues to push absurd notions like every teacher being a walking armory rather than other measures that have worked in other nations. But nothing demonstrates that hypocrisy like the NRA’s own convention where guns were banned. I wonder why they did that, hmm?

Then there’s the issue of voter suppression. The GOP works tirelessly to enact laws that are aimed at suppressing would-be Democrats (poor minorities and women) from voting. They’e even admitted this. Here’s a collection of public Republican statements about the real effects and real intentions of “voter id” laws: Unbelievable GOP Statements on Voter Suppression

And yet despite openly saying that, Republican voters refuse to listen to what their own party leaders admit, and cling, irrationally, to the idea that voter id laws will clean up some non-existent voter fraud problem.

Then there’s the War Of A Thousand Lies. Iraq was the war where Republicans proved, over and over and over again, that they will lie about anything to start a war to make their corporate buddies rich. And that’s what happened. Cheney’s Halliburton raked in $35 billion alone from the Iraq war. And those nearly 1000 lies? They killed over 4000 Americans, wounded another 30,000+ Americans, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. There’s no morality that can excuse what the GOP did to get us into the Iraq war or excuse the human costs of the Iraq war.

Then there’s the truth that the GOP has introduced over 120 anti-LGBT bills this year at the state and local levels around the United States. How many have Democrats introduced? Zero. The GOP hates you if you are LGBT. And thinking you can change the GOP from within? How’s that working out for the Log Cabin Republicans? In the 1970s, the GOP didn’t even care about LGBT people. They weren’t for us, but they were not rabidly against us. But today they are foaming at the mouth against LGBT people everywhere, trying to pass laws that would institutionalize bigotry against LGBT people, and yet some of you vote Republican?

I could go on and on, but I won’t. Voting Republican as an LGBT person is an act of insanity. Don’t give me the “single issue” voter excuse and dismiss me being LGBT as my reason for voting Democrat.  I vote Democrat because Democrats are not war mongers, because Democrats are good for the economy, because Democrats want to improve and enforce reasonable restrictions on buying and owning guns, because Democrats have actually been good at controlling and even reducing the national debt, because Democrats want you to have health care, because Democrats believe you should not retire in poverty.

Voting Democrat as an LGBT person doesn’t make me a single issue voter. It makes you positively insane for believing all those Republican lies when the plain facts in front of your face tell you they are not true.

So what excuse do you have now for voting Republican? It’s sure not a “single issue, LGBT” excuse, is it?