Joel Brizzee, Nevada field director for the Log Cabin Republicans, poses in Lone Mountain Regional Park Friday, April 8, 2022.
Friday, April 15, 2022 | 2 a.m.
For Las Vegas resident Joel Brizzee, coming out as gay to the evangelical conservative world was a “picnic” in comparison to coming out as a conservative to the LGBTQ community.
He says that a couple of years ago when a pool party photo of him and other gay conservative men circulated on Twitter, there were hundreds of comments from other gay men calling them “self-hating” and “traitorous.”
“For a group of people that considers themselves to be supporters of diversity and inclusion, they cannot bring themselves to support diversity of thought and mind,” Brizzee said.
But Brizzee found a group he identifies with: the Log Cabin Republicans of Nevada, a chapter of the country’s largest Republican organization dedicated to representing LGBTQ conservatives.
Although Democrats may consider “gay” and “Republican” to be antonymic, the community has grown over the past few years to 35 chapters in 26 states. The Nevada chapter has 50 members.
“It mystifies Democrats,” said Ed Williams, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Nevada. “They say, ‘How can you be Republican and be gay?’ It’s actually really easy. We have families. We have jobs. We pay taxes. There might be a few things we disagree on with all Republicans, but we can still coexist.
“It is far easier to be a gay person in the Republican Party than it is to be a conservative in the LGBT community.”
In 2020, The New York Times surveyed 15,590 people and found that 28% of self-identified LGBTQ people supported former President Donald Trump. In 2016, only 14% of the LGBTQ population voted for him.
“He doubled his gay base after being deemed a transphobic, bigoted, racist misognyist monster for four years,” said Brizzee, the Nevada field director for Log Cabin.
The Log Cabin Republicans of Nevada was founded in 1992 and first worked to repeal the sodomy laws in Nevada, which decriminalized the act in 1993. Since then, the group has worked on several efforts in the state, mostly around repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies.
In 2014, Log Cabin Republicans of Nevada worked with Clark County and the state Republican Party to reform the platforms and remove marriage language from them, said Williams, who was also the first openly gay chairman appointed to the Clark County Republican Party.
The past several years, the group has been working on getting more of the conservative LGBTQ voice out into the public, Williams said.
“It’s an underserved audience,” he said. “It’s been growing over the years, very quietly it seems. We’re trying to make sure the conservative point of view is heard within the LGBTQ community.”
The Republican Party in general has gained more traction recently, as President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have dipped, with political experts citing inflation, coronavirus policies and the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Williams said there are many issues that need to be solved in Nevada not just for LGBTQ folks, but every Nevadan. Taxes have increased, inflation has risen and the state’s schools score poorly in national rankings, he said.
“I don’t see a difference between a gay American and a straight American,” Brizzee said. “I think that the sole focus on ‘what are you doing for gay people’ or ‘what are you doing for lesbian, gender, nonbinary (people)’ is the wrong way to approach any policy.”
“Gay isn’t an ideology,” Brizzee said. “Gay is a sexual orientation. Nothing more than that, nothing less than that. As a gay man, I want small government. I want low taxes. I want a secure border. I want a strong military. I believe in the power of the parent over the power of the state.”
On a national level, the group works to get Republicans elected and endorses Republican candidates, but it has withheld endorsements from candidates who are “clearly opposed to inclusion,” Brizzee said.
And Brizzee says the GOP is not the only party that supports anti-LGBTQ policies. In criticizing Democratic leaders, he said they “conveniently are pro-gay when it’s helpful to them,” but are “silent on the abuses” taking place against gay people in Middle Eastern countries. The Biden administration is considering a nuclear deal with Iran, for instance, even though Iran commits atrocities against LGBTQ folks, Brizzee said.
Iran’s equality index is 6 out of 100. Homosexuality is illegal there and punishable by death, and there are no protections for LGBTQ people.
Still, while politicians on both sides of the aisle have held anti-LGBTQ beliefs, it is the Republican Party that has traditionally carried that torch and continues to propose and pass anti-LGBTQ laws today. The National Republican Party’s platform, which hasn’t been updated since 2016, still insists that marriage is between a man and a woman, and it still opposes the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which determined that the 14th Amendment requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages.
According to Politico, at the GOP convention in 2016, Trump became the first Republican to mention protecting the rights of LGBTQ citizens. In a post-election interview with “60 Minutes” he said same-sex marriage is “law” and that “it was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean, it’s done.”
But while that kind of language indicates to some that the GOP’s views on gay people have become more tolerant, its politics regarding the transgender community remain less inclusive. Trump banned transgender Americans from serving in the military and supported North Carolina’s HB2 law, which required students to use public school restrooms and locker rooms based on the gender indicated on their birth certificates. That law was later repealed.
In 2021, 33 states introduced more than 100 bills aiming to curb the rights of transgender people across the country, according to CNN.
When asked how he squares being conservative when GOP politicians push anti-LGBTQ bills, Brizzee did not defend the Republican Party but instead pointed a finger at Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., who as the state’s attorney general in 2014 filed a 55-page brief on behalf of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval defending Nevada’s ban on same-sex marriage. She withdrew it within that same week after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion finding it unconstitutional to exclude jurors based on sexual orientation.
“I’m not interested in distracting Nevadans with old bills in other states but rather what is actually going on now with our failed incumbent Democrat senator who likened gay marriage to bigamy and incest without being questioned on it by the media,” Brizzee said in an email.
Josh Marcus-Black, a spokesperson for Cortez Masto, said when Sandoval was sued, “her job was to defend the law until a ruling made clear that it was no longer defensible.”
“Catherine has always believed in marriage equality and protecting the LGBTQ+ community,” Marcus-Black said. “She voted against the 2002 same-sex marriage ban in Nevada and is a proud sponsor of the Equality Act.”
Because of the successes enjoyed by the LGBTQ community, Brizzee questions Democratic organizations’ focus on oppression.
“I would say we are one of the greatest examples of an American group becoming victors,” he said. “While women and African Americans underwent in some cases over a century of actual oppression, of being literally beaten down … we’ve gotten everything we’ve ever asked for. In less than 40 years we’ve done everything. How we are not looked at as a group that is victorious is beyond me.”
