On Tuesday morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook will host a breakfast fundraiser in Menlo Park to raise untold thousands of dollars for House Speaker Paul Ryan and other House Republicans.

Tim Cook? For Paul Ryan? Really?

Why would a gay tech leader who supports same-sex marriage and transgender rights raise money for someone — and a party — who consistently opposes them?

Or why is Cook rallying his pals to shower cash on Ryan, who days after the Orlando massacre refused to even let the House vote on a package of gun control measures? That legislation was inspired by a sense of horror after a gunman murdered 49 people in a gay club, an event that Cook tweeted was “an unspeakable tragedy.”

When Democrats, led by civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, held a 25-hour sit-in on the House floor to protest the chamber’s inaction on gun control, Ryan shrugged it off as a “publicity stunt” designed to raise money, then sent House members home on recess ... so they could raise more money.

If Cook stands behind Ryan on all that, then he should crank up the PayPal and cut him a check to keep doing what he’s doing. Because Tuesday, Cook — CEO of one of the most visible and valuable companies on the planet — will be making a very loud personal statement: Heckuva job, Paulie.

Yet instead of outrage from the tech community — where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues are priorities — the general reaction to Cook fundraising for Ryan has been an underwhelming “Meh.”

The feeling is that since Cook has given to both Democrats and Republicans over the years, this fundraiser is just the cost of doing business in Washington. It’s not personal, it’s business. No different from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer donating to President Obama or Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison giving millions to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Apple, per company policy, “does not make political contributions to individual candidates or parties.” So this is on Cook.

Perhaps Cook feels that he needs to hedge his political bets and snag a GOP friend in high places after Apple pulled out of sponsoring next month’s Republican convention in Cleveland when Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee, as Politico reported.

And Ryan has long had some Silicon Valley-friendly characteristics. His lower-tax, laissez-faire philosophy taps into the tech industry’s wide libertarian streak. Ryan is pro-encryption — an important issue to Apple — while Trump ripped the company for not helping to unlock the phone of the San Bernardino shooter.

Ryan — along with his longtime pal, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield — have made regular trips to the Silicon Valley region for years. Several years ago, I asked Ryan during one of those trips why he opposed keeping federal taxes higher on wealthy Americans.

“The reason we tax cigarettes in this country is to get people to stop smoking,” he said. “If you tax capital more, you get less capital. If you tax job-creators more, you get fewer jobs.”

It’s not smart to boost taxes on capital gains income, either, Ryan said. “That’s the seed corn for the economy, which gets invested in entrepreneurs and startups and small businesses.”

But Ryan’s record on LGBT issues is terrible. He scored a big fat “0” on the Congressional Scorecard compiled by the Human Rights Campaign — the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy organization.

Wonder how that sits with Cook?

Last year, Cook told “60 Minutes” that after he came out in 2014 it “became increasingly clear to me that if I said something, that it could help other people. And I’m glad, because I think that some kid somewhere, some kid in Alabama, I think if they just for a moment stop and say, ‘If it didn’t limit him, it may not limit me.’ Or this kid that’s getting bullied or ... worse, I’ve gotten notes from people contemplating suicide. And so if I could touch just one of those, it’s worth it. And I couldn’t look myself in the mirror without doing it.”

Will Cook be able to look at himself in the mirror after Tuesday’s breakfast? That depends on whether it considers the fundraiser to be business or personal.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli