Vice Writer Apparently Surprised that ‘Gay’ Is Not a Political Orientation

Obviously headlining a story
“Meet
the Gay Libertarian Gun Nuts” is designed to be deliberately
inflammatory clickbait. So it goes at Vice (not a
judgment, just an observation). But beyond the headline, writer
Cecilia D’Anastasio is one of those folks who is amazed to discover
that coming out of the closet doesn’t include an application to
register as a Democrat.

Starting with the tale of gay, libertarian gun rights advocate
(and
plaintiff) Tom Palmer,
D’Anastasio discovers the world is a complicated place:

Palmer isn’t the only gay pro-gun libertarian activist out
there. In fact, there are thousands of LGBT individuals who are
skeptical of the government and love shooting things—or are at
least prepared to do so in self-defense. I wasn’t aware of this
subculture until I
attended LibertyFest NYC—initially, I was taken aback when
Marcel Fontaine, a speaker at the convention and creator of the
“LGBT for Gun
Rights” Facebook page told me that the “more guns, less crime”
argument often referenced by opponents of gun control can apply to
hate crimes, too. “Armed gays don’t get bashed” is how they often
put it. 

D’Anastasio is then surprised to find gay fans of Ron and Rand
Paul, despite Ron’s previous vote for the Defense of Marriage Act
(reminder:
Joe Biden voted for it, too, and it passed with veto-proof
majorities). She also seems to think it’s odd for gays to embrace
the libertarian support for a free market that makes it legal to
discriminate against them (she needs to read my primer on the
philosophical consitency
here).

But then she actually does her homework and notes the
Libertarian Party’s lengthy history of support for gays and
lesbians going back to the 1970s, courageous (at the time)
positions based on a coherent civil rights philosophy that the
Democratic Party could only dream of claiming. She quotes several
gay supporters for gun rights who state the obvious—if more gay
people were armed, fewer folks would attempt to bash them. The
piece ends with an attempt to get somebody to present a
counterargument that gays shouldn’t carry around guns, but, well,
it doesn’t seem to land. I trust libertarians to spot the pretty
significant logical flaws:

Shelby Chestnut, a media spokesperson at the Anti-Violence Project, which targets LGBT
community members, argues that guns are tools of hate crimes, not a
way to prevent them. Citing the case of
Cece McDonald, a transgender woman who was sent to jail after
defending herself against a homophobic attack, Chestnut noted that
carrying a gun can often subject LGBT people to even greater
violence.

“We need to look at the systemic inequalities that are causing
people to be victims of violence,” she said. “The solution to that
is definitely not creating violence to end violence.”

Read the full piece here.