Presidential hopeful and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, may have deeply unpalatable views on issues from foreign policy (she’s pals with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad) to taxation, but none have put her under fire from the Left more than her history with LGBT issues.
Gabbard, raised by a Catholic father, once held fairly strong opposition not just to gay marriage, but to homosexuality in general. Even by contemporary standards, Gabbard’s lamentations of “homosexual extremists” were more intolerant than the norm. She worked for her father’s PAC which advocated for gay conversion therapy, a practice that most scientists agree is ineffective in “curing” homosexuality. In 2004, Gabbard opposed civil unions for same-sex couples in the Hawaii House of Representatives. She’s since radically evolved on the issue, publicly apologizing to the gay community in 2012 as she ran for Congress. Her record on the national stage has been about as pro-LGBT as any other mainstream Democrat, and there’s no indication it’s anything less than genuine.
But that hasn’t protected Gabbard from left-wing ire. Media Matters editor Parker Molloy accused Gabbard of “personally” believing that gay people are “icky,” despite her congressional record and recent statements. Huffington Post editor Michelangelo Signorile accused Gabbard’s evolution as not “convincing” due to a 2016 interview in which Gabbard attributed her military service to convincing her of the dangers of a theocracy “imposing its will” on the public. Salon’s Matthew Rozsa echoed the sentiment.
But consider the level of authenticity behind Gabbard’s evolution. Sure, former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton didn’t engage in the same anti-gay activism that Gabbard did, but Gabbard was able to come from a deeply conservative household, be recruited by her father to proliferate anti-gay messaging, and embrace gay rights by her 20s. By contrast, Clinton didn’t back same-sex marriage until she left the Obama administration. Obama didn’t even grow up in a religious household, and he still opposed gay marriage during his first term.
Furthermore, Gabbard’s father, Mike, a Hawaii state senator and political force in his own right, publicly admitted that his recruitment of his daughter put her through “trauma,” and that to see her video apologizing for her past “broke [his] heart.” Mike stands by his Catholic opposition to gay marriage, but he and the presidential hopeful remain close.
“I know that Tulsi’s position, although different than mine, comes from a place of aloha, respect, and compassion for other people. So, although I disagree with her, I respect her position,” Mike told the Washington Examiner. “I have to admit that she has made me more empathetic and understanding of the difficulties that gays face in society.”
If anything, the Left should celebrate Gabbard’s evolution as a success story, a living example of how someone can become more tolerant without giving up her religious values. Grace and forgiveness still matter, and if every person who’s evolved on an issue just gets smeared by the public as inauthentic, what’s the incentive to evolve at all?
It’s ultimately up to Democratic voters to judge her authenticity, and as it stands, Gabbard doesn’t have a real constituency. But it’s worth celebrating Gabbard for following her conscience, not lambasting her for thoughtcrime.
