Inside the growing trend of #LGBTforTrump

After the absolutely tragic mass shooting in Orlando, where 49 people were killed and even more were hospitalized, there are many issues that have surfaced that we can no longer continue to sweep under the carpet.

While Hillary Clinton has focused on gun control, Donald Trump has focused on radical Islam and immigration. In a speech in New Hampshire after the Orlando attack, he claimed he was “right about radical Islam”. Also in the speech, he repeated his call to ban Muslims from entering this country. He proceeded to ask “who is a greater friend of the LGBT community? Donald Trump with actions, or Hillary Clinton with words? I will tell you who the better friend is. And some day, I believe it will be proven out, bigly”.

Stereotypically, the LGBTQ+ community is fairly liberal. This is not to say the LGBTQ+ cannot have conservative views. There are ample organizations to represent those within the LGBTQ+ community with more conservative views. Despite this, however, many may be surprised to hear that there are a number of LGBT individuals who see Trump as their “greater friend”.

Not just that, even online communities entitled LGBT for Trump have emerged recently. To better understand why some members of the LGBT community have chosen to vote for Trump, we interviewed the creator of the Facebook page LGBT for Trump, Dewey Lainhart, who is 31 and a steel industry worker.

What made you create the page LGBT for Trump?

I created this page because I have a lot of gay friends. I got tired of seeing “fag this, fag that” on other pro-Trump pages. So I made this page so other LGBT Trump supporters can share and talk about things, without having to worry about having a homophobic asshole call us a fag. I also mainly made this page to show other LGBT people that they are not alone, that there are other LGBT Trump supporters out here and we can support each other.

What political party do you identify with, or do you consider yourself independent?

I identify as a Republican. But I would vote for who ever I think would be best for the job. I personally think Trump is the man for the job. He has very strong background, he truly loves this country, and he would do whatever he can to do this country and the people right.

Why do you think there aren’t more conservative LGBT members?

Gay people have been led to believe that liberals are for them and conservatives are out to deny them their rights, and put policies in place to discriminate against them. The problem is this is a lie. Most of the LGBT community only votes on gay issues and nothing else. They seem not to care about job [creation], defense, debt etc.

---

Here is what some other LGBT people have to say about Trump: