In recent years, Republican propaganda has quietly moved away from loud condemnation of the gay community to focusing the most overt hate on trans people. Donald Trump even has a few token gay men in his closest circles, such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has two children with his husband. Marriage equality was legalized in all 50 states by the Supreme Court 11 years ago in Obergefell v. Hodges, and it has often been tempting to assume that the GOP has largely given up on trying to restigmatize, much less ban, gay marriage.
After all, the main argument Republicans had against marriage equality was that it was a threat to straight marriage. A 2015 amicus brief arguing against same-sex marriage, for instance, said that legalizing same-sex marriage would teach people that “society no longer needs men to bond to women,” and would lead to straight men — “who generally need more encouragement to marry than women” — to give up on marriage.
