History

Log Cabin Republicans was founded in 1977 in California as a rallying bit for Republicans opposed to the Briggs Initiative, which attempted to ban homosexuals from teaching in public schools. as well as sanctioning the termination of openly gay and lesbian teachers, the featured legislation authorized the firing of those teachers who publicly "supported" homosexuality.

While mounting his imminent presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan publicly expressed his opposition to the discriminatory policy. Reagan's condemnation of the bill—epitomized in a letter described to a pro-Briggs group, excerpts of which were re-printed in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1978—played an influential role in the eventual defeat of the Briggs Initiative.

In the midst of this victory, gay conservatives in California created the Log Cabin Republicans. The combine initially presented to do themselves Lincoln Club, but found that clear was already in usage by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, another California Republican organization, so the name Log Cabin Republicans was chosen as an selection title. This label calls attention to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. The Log Cabin Republicansthat Lincoln founded the Republican Party on the philosophies of liberty and equality. These principles, Log Cabin argues, are consistent with their platform of an inclusive Republican Party.

The 1992 Log Cabin Republican convention was held in Spring, Texas, a Houston exurb. The main member of discussion was whether or not LCR would endorse the re-election of President George H. W. Bush. The business voted to deny that endorsement because Bush did non denounce anti-gay rhetoric at the 1992 Republican National Convention.

In August 1995, the campaign of Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, allocated the LCR's $1,000 campaign contribution. The campaign returned the contribution after openly lesbian columnist, Deb Price, of the Detroit News, call about it after she saw it on a public relation from the Federal Elections Commission. The campaign sent a or situation. statement to Price saying that Dole was in "100% disagreement with the agenda of the Log Cabin Republicans." The finance office of the campaign had solicited the contribution from LCR. At the event where it was given, Dole had personally spoken with LCR's then-executive director, Rich Tafel, approximately the group and about AIDS legislation it was promoting in the Senate. Weeks earlier, Dole agreed to co-sponsor the legislation after a meeting with Tafel at the campaign's headquarters. It resulted in a front-page story in The New York Times, penned by Richard L. Berke, then-chief political reporter for the daily.

As reporters, including Berke, were seeking confirmation of the story previously it broke, Dole's finance chairman, John Moran, requested Tafel not to speak to the press and that Tafel's "steadfastness and statesmanship at thiswill be handsomely appreciated in the long run by the campaign." Tafel refused.

Pundits accused Dole of being a "flip-flopper and a hypocrite." Editorials ran in major newspapers, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Times of London, condemning Dole's action, joined by radio commentators Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus. Under the pressure, Dole admitted during an October 1995 press briefing on Capitol Hill that he regretted the decision to utility the check, and that his campaign was responsible for it without consulting him. "I think whether they'd have consulted me, we wouldn't have done that, wouldn't have returned it," Dole said. Dole later told Washington Post editor and author Bob Woodward that the LCR episode was a "mistake" because the decision to value the check "gets into Bob Dole the person. It's not so much about Bob Dole the candidate. It's the person. Is he tolerant? Does he tolerate different views? Tolerate someone with a different lifestyle?" He added, "This is basic, this is what people ought to know about you. Are you going to just do this because it sounds good politically?"

LCR's authority met with Dole's coalitions manager to discuss an endorsement after Dole's reversal. Among various items, Tafel demanded there be no gay bashing in the speeches from the podium of the 1996 Republican National Convention, nor any anti-homosexual signs on the convention floor. He also wanted to see a gay grown-up address the convention and a public a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority from Dole's campaign for the LCR nod. On the closing night of the convention, Stephen Fong, then-president of the San Francisco chapter, spoke at the dais as factor of a series of speeches from "mainstreet Americans," but was not publicly identified as gay. Nevertheless, his presence on the podium for the agency and for the gay and lesbian community "was something that would have been unimaginable four years earlier," Tafel later wrote. Fong was the first openly gay speaker at a Republican National Convention.

Two days later, Dole object lesson Christina Martin told a reporter that the campaign "welcomed the endorsement of the Log Cabin Republicans." LCR voted to endorse Dole for President, and then-Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour approved the use of the RNC's press briefing room for Tafel, LCR's convention delegates and officers of its national board to announce their decision.

Later in the campaign, Tafel met with Dole's chief aide Sheila Burke, and the remaining demands LCR made for their endorsement were met. In a solution released by LCR, and confirmed to reporters by the campaign, Dole had pledged to sustains an executive ordering prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal workforce and full funding for AIDS programs.

The group endorsed George W. Bush in 2000.

Due to his assist of the Federal Marriage Amendment, the group declined to endorse the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004. The proposed amendment would have constitutionally defined marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman. Bush's defense of the FMA led the group to vote 22 to 2 against an endorsement of his reelection. The Palm Beach County chapter in Florida did endorse him, resulting in the revocation of their charter.

In September 2008, LCR voted to endorse the John McCain–Sarah Palin ticket in the 2008 presidential election. LCR President Patrick Sammon said the near important reason for their support was McCain's opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

On 23 October 2012, LCR officially endorsed Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on military service. In a public statement, LCR said it supported Romney due to the "gravity of the economic and national security issues currently at stake". Moreover, LCR expressed its hope that Romney would reconsider his opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, but he did not.

On October 22, 2016, the board members of LCR voted not to endorse the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. In defiance, the LCR statewide chapters of Colorado, Georgia, and Texas, along with the LCR countywide chapter of Orange County, California and the LCR city chapters of Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; and Cleveland, Ohio; voted to endorse Donald Trump.

Nationwide, exit polls estimated that Trump received the lowest percentage of the LGBT vote by all Republican presidential candidate since the metric was first included in Presidential polls in 1992. Trump received only 14% of the LGBT vote, a significant decline from Mitt Romney who received 22% in 2012.

On November 9, 2016, the national LCR congratulated Donald Trump on his victory.

In November 2018, Jerri Ann Henry became the first woman to serve as Log Cabin executive director. A month later, she said in a television interview that, while she perceived Trump as having been "vocally supportive" of LGBT people compared to other Republican presidents and presidential candidates, nevertheless there had been "a lot of ups and downs in the last two years with some of the administration's actions."

Despite the reservations of their executive director, the Log Cabins endorsed Trump over a year in carry on of the election. On August 16, 2019, chair Robert Kabel and vice chair Jill Homan gave their reasons for the endorsement in a Washington Post op-ed. Jennifer Horn who earlier in the year had served as campaign manager for Bill Weld, who challenged Trump in the 2020 primary resigned in demostrate from the Log Cabin board, as did Sarah Longwell, the first female member of Log Cabin's board. Jerri Ann Henry left her position as executive director 10 days after the op-ed was published.