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*The following is an opinion column by R Muse *

Over the past eight years many pundits have referenced the absurdity of Americans voting against their own self-interests. One could attribute the phenomenon to low-information, low-intellect or just rank stupidity, but it is more likely due to contempt for other Americans.

By now though, even bone-head Republicans comprehend, or they should comprehend, that there is nothing whatsoever any Republican will ever do for the people; it’s just not in their religious conservative nature. Still, disparate special interest groups are supporting the GOP with full knowledge that Republicans are simply anti-everything and they will never change, especially now that a reality television celebrity is running the party.

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There is an old poem, or story, attributed to various peoples in history about a rattlesnake that fatally bites an idiot that took pity on the creature and picked it up to save the its life. As the victim lay dying they ask the snake why it bit them after being rescued. Of course the rattlesnake tells the dying good Samaritan that “you knew I was a rattlesnake all along and you picked me up anyway.”

There are different ways to express the moral of the story, but suffice it to say that anyone who is intimately involved with evil should only expect that evil to be visited on them, because they knew they were cavorting with evil. Another moral for the story is don’t be stupid.

One group of Republicans were, and probably still are dazed, angry, and sufficiently confused over both the RNC’s anti-LGBT platform as well as Donald Trump’s choice of an anti-LGBT rights running mate in Mike Pence. Last week the story was that the only openly-gay Republican delegate ever to sit on the platform-writing committee was in tears as “her Party” steadfastly hewed to its evangelical extremism and included decidedly anti-gay rhetoric in the official Party platform.

On the heels of that story was openly gay Log Cabin Republican (LCR) president, Gregory T. Angelo, unleashing Hell on the RNC and issuing a press release in the form of a fundraising-like letter to LCR members claiming he “is mad as Hell;” but he is still a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.

In his press release/letter, Mr. Angelo said:

“There’s no way to sugar-coat this: I’m mad as hell – and I know you are, too. The Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT platform in the Party’s 162-year history. Opposition to marriage equality, nonsense about bathrooms, an endorsement of the debunked psychological practice of ‘pray the gay away’ – it’s all in there. This isn’t my GOP and I know it’s not yours either.”

Logic would inform a person with even diminished cognitive abilities that:

If the GOP is not your party and you’re mad as Hell; and they are opposed to and hate everything about you and your way of life; and they literally want you dead to conform with their god and Christian bible’s dogma, then logic and self-preservation demands that you flee the party with the utmost urgency. But that is not happening in GOP stupid land.

As many pundits have noted over the past eight years, Republicans and their voters fulfill Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity in doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. In this particular case, it is insane on the GOP’s part to continue pursuing a policy of hatred toward LGBT people when the majority of Americans now support marriage equality and the Constitution’s equal rights safeguards, but it is just batshit crazy for gay Republicans to cling to the Party and expect it to change and support LGBT equality. LCR can’t comprehend that the GOP is the proverbial rattlesnake in the earlier referenced story and they keep clutching it to their bosoms and get angry they are getting bit.

These Republicans, who are also gay, cannot or will not separate themselves from the Party no matter how much the social conservative Republicans want to harm them. So, besides the LCR president writing a letter, since the group was “credentialed to attend the convention” they attended the convention to raise Hell and:

“Take a stand. Now is not the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. But we’re going to need your support to do it. That’s why I’m writing to ask for your help.

Please give today and give generously — $500, $250, $100, or whatever you can give…to Take back the Platform. Take back the Party…and let the folks on the Platform Committee who paved the way to this foolishness know you’re not going down without a fight!”

LCR did not “take back” their party, did not change anything, and did not even put up a fight. As a conservative over at RedState remarked: how could gay Republicans ever “Take back what was never yours? That’s the problem. I’m all for inclusion, [but] not at the expense of the soul of the party.”

The conservative writer claimed that LCR’s intent is “fundamentally changing the party to the point that there is no visible difference between the GOP and the Democrats.” Another Republican idiot, obviously. Not openly calling for discrimination against LGBT people is in no universe the only difference between Republicans and Democrats and any American who watched any of the RNC hate-fest learned that first hand.

If Mr. Angelo had actually kept tabs on the machinations that produced the anti-LGBT platform, he would be aware that there was an openly gay delegate on the platform-writing committee that wept while pleading with Republicans for a semblance of compassion for gay people and their constitutional rights. In fact, Rachel Hoff appealed to the Republicans saying, “We are your daughters. We are your sons, your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, the couple that sits next to you in church. Freedom means freedom for everyone, including for gays and lesbians.”

Silly first openly-gay Republican delegate ever: doesn’t she know that part and parcel of everything Republicans stand for is denying freedom to every American, particularly gays and lesbians?

It is simply astonishing that any LGBT person, or advocacy group, even a Republican gay advocacy group, would think for one nano-second that the Party that exists to deny equality to well over half the population would suddenly embrace equality for the LGBT community; the evangelical right will never allow it and for LCR to think otherwise is beyond insanity; it is stupid. And as if to punctuate exactly how stupid it is, LCR went to Cleveland to support Trump and his anti-gay running mate, and then they will vote up and down the ballot for all the venomous Republicans who will bite them immediately on being sworn in office.

Now, there are likely other groups in the Republican party that do not embrace every hateful policy near and dear to the party faithful, and they probably had high hopes that this year in this election things would be different. Now that there is stark evidence the GOP is more extreme than ever, and are Hell-bent on biting everyone in America who is not a white Christian male, it is curious why the party still has broad support from the various sub-groups among the rank and file.

One expects poor, low-information yokels in the rural South and Midwest to consistently vote against their own self-interests; they’re stupid bible thumpers and don’t know any better. However, for seemingly intelligent, informed and politically-engaged members of the LGBT community to continue supporting Republicans is not only stunning, it’s a special kind of stupid that makes those low-information yokels blush; it also informs that the stupid runs deep in Republican ranks.