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The Log Cabin Republicans of Huntsville Tuesday endorsed Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to become the new Senate Majority Leader during a second Presidential term of Donald Trump.
Formed in 1977 in response to California legislation that sought to ban LGBT individuals from teaching in public schools, the group has grown across the country over the past 40 years with a focus on representing the interests of LGBT conservatives.
“Mitch McConnell and his allies have aided Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in bringing our country to its knees and subverting efforts of conservatives,” said Andy Blalock, president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Huntsville. “Rick Scott was the only person with the courage to challenge Mitch McConnell in the last leadership election and has a record that proves he is the clear choice to help implement President Trump’s America First agenda that voters chose on Election Day.”
The group joins Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, and other figures including Elon Musk in supporting Scott to take the reins from longtime Republican leader McConnell, and Blalock said the group encourages Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, to support Scott in Wednesday’s vote for majority leader.
The Huntsville group is the only Log Cabin Republicans chapter in Alabama, and has just recently doubled to having about 200 members on its email list last month.
Exit polls from last week’s Presidential election show that LGBTQ+ voters as a whole have shifted even further left from four years ago, with 86 percent of voters signaling they voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and only 12 percent supporting Trump. In 2020, about 27 percent of LGBTQ+ voters said they voted for Trump.
LCR did not endorse Trump in his initial 2o16 Presidential bid, which included opposition to same-sex marriage, but endorsed Trump in 2020 and 2024 after leaders said he led the party to be more inclusive of LGBT individuals.
The group has courted controversy nationwide and in the state as the majority of LGBTQ+ individuals have historically been aligned with the Democrat party and have seen the recent Republican agenda increasingly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
PFLAG of Huntsville (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) pulled out of the Rocket City Pride’s PrideFest last month due to the inclusion of LCR at the event.
“RCP’s decision to include the Huntsville Log Cabin Republicans, a divisive political group noted for their tacit support of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation has deeply disappointed us. The Huntsville LCR chapter chair’s support of the harassment of a trans employee of the US Space & Rocket Center is corrosive and toxic to the LGBTQIA+ community and has made Pride Fest feel both unwelcoming and unsafe for ALL members of our community,” PFLAG of Huntsville said in a statement announcing their withdrawal from the event. “We feel our attendance or even silence on the matter would imply endorsement of RCP’s decision, and we strenuously disapprove. Pride Fest should be a joyful and safe space for ALL members of the LGBTQIA+ community and allies — not an occasion for some queer folk to celebrate while others are left under the eye of the hateful and exclusive.”
Blalock said the attention brought by the situation actually led to increased interest in the organization. He brushed aside the concerns that LGBTQ+ Alabamians are feeling with the reelection of Trump and his agenda.
“Those fears are due solely to misinformation from the mainstream media,” Blalock said.
The organization broadly supports Republican measures that have trickled down to the state level, including the state’s prohibition on teachers leading instruction or discussion on gender identity or sexual orientation in schools, its ban on gender-affirming care for minors and challenges to books for minors that include LGBTQ+ content.
Blalock characterized Trump’s leadership as reforming the Republican Party to removing anti-LGBT language from the party’s platform and said First Lady Melania Trump has raised more than $2 million for the organization.
Perhaps most important to Blalock is an emphasis that the Log Cabin Republicans are conservatives that happen to be gay, painting a reverse portrait of LGBTQ+ individuals on the left.
“We are for equality for all, lower taxes, limited government, we’re big family people … We are conservatives, we’re patriots—and we just so happen to be gay. Democrats say ‘we are gay and lesbian’ and then Democrats and the rest that follows.”
