Seven local chapters of the Log Cabin
Republicans have endorsed Donald Trump for president.
The endorsements come just days after
the national organization voted to withhold its support for the GOP
candidate.
According to The Advocate, local
chapters in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Texas, Georgia, Colorado
and Orange County, California have endorsed Trump.
Local chapters are generally not
allowed to endorse national candidates. But Log Cabin leaders this
year have invited local chapters to officially weigh in on the race.
Vincent Foster, president of Miami's
Log Cabin chapter, told the Miami Herald that they were
willing to go their separate way over the issue.
“We were ready to risk everything and
go our separate way to support our most supportive Republican
presidential candidate for the LGBT community,” Foster
said.
In an interview with NPR, Gregory
Angelo, president of the national group, explained the reasons behind
their decision to withhold support.
“[T]here's a difference between
pro-LGBT rhetoric and pro-LGBT policy,” Angelo
said. “That's really what's at the crux of our decision to
withhold an endorsement here, is, while that GOP convention marked a
sea change in terms of the way the GOP talks about LGBT individuals,
there are still major policy concerns that we have. And there's still
a great deal of uncertainty about what a Trump administration would
mean for those policies.”
“You know, all of my conversations
with the Trump campaign, senior advisers to the Trump campaign were
essentially boiled down to the same mantra. You don't have anything
to worry about when it comes to the LGBT stuff with Donald Trump. And
while we may not have anything to worry about, those would just be
assumptions at this point,” he added.
George Gramer, president of the
Colorado chapter, told Mile
High Gay that his group's endorsement was based on Trump's
“commitment to America first, peace through strength and free
enterprise.”