No posthumous whitewash for Lindsey Graham
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Lindsey Graham.
Public domain photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Lindsey Graham (or Lady G, to use the nickname he was allegedly given by DC hustlers) was never an ally of mine, to put it mildly. But he at least stood for something, and his brutally blunt assessment of Trump‘s unfitness for office when he was running against him for president in 2016 was an example. Another was when he teared up as he described what a decent man Joe Biden was.
Like so many Republicans, unfortunately, Graham responded to Trump winning the nomination by abandoning his views in exchange for proximity to power. His alacrity in trading principle for ambition was made worse by his penchant for nasty remarks, which reminded me of a self-hating queen in the pre-Stonewall play “Boys in the Band.”
Graham’s longstanding hawkishness took an extreme form. He was all in for genocide in Gaza, for example, encouraging Israel to flatten the place. he took pleasure in saying it.
This reminds me of something gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny said about a homophobic priest he was responding to at a debate on gay rights that I organized at Villanova University in the winter of 1978 during my senior year there: “He is wrong, as he will learn when he meets his maker in due course.”
That, to be sure, was not a nice thing to say. It ruffled the feathers of some attending the debate at the time. But it hit the mark regarding the man Frank was locking horns with, and it fits Graham better now than the be-nice-to-the-dead remarks I heard this morning on cable TV.
Graham oozed self-satisfaction as he encouraged the savagery that America bankrolled and joined in the Middle East alongside Israel. We do the cause of decency no service by whitewashing his record posthumously.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at [email protected]. He is a past president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington and a cofounder of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.
Copyright © 2026 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.
Click here to read more articles by Richard Rosendall.
Like so many Republicans, unfortunately, Graham responded to Trump winning the nomination by abandoning his views in exchange for proximity to power. His alacrity in trading principle for ambition was made worse by his penchant for nasty remarks, which reminded me of a self-hating queen in the pre-Stonewall play “Boys in the Band.”
Graham’s longstanding hawkishness took an extreme form. He was all in for genocide in Gaza, for example, encouraging Israel to flatten the place. he took pleasure in saying it.
This reminds me of something gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny said about a homophobic priest he was responding to at a debate on gay rights that I organized at Villanova University in the winter of 1978 during my senior year there: “He is wrong, as he will learn when he meets his maker in due course.”
That, to be sure, was not a nice thing to say. It ruffled the feathers of some attending the debate at the time. But it hit the mark regarding the man Frank was locking horns with, and it fits Graham better now than the be-nice-to-the-dead remarks I heard this morning on cable TV.
Graham oozed self-satisfaction as he encouraged the savagery that America bankrolled and joined in the Middle East alongside Israel. We do the cause of decency no service by whitewashing his record posthumously.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist at [email protected]. He is a past president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington and a cofounder of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.
Copyright © 2026 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.
Click here to read more articles by Richard Rosendall.
