Thus, in order to win an election, a LesBiGay candidate or measure necessarily depends on the support of heterosexual voters. This may be improbable, given the overwhelming disaffection of the American people toward LesBiGays. As political scientist Kenneth Sherrill noted, "Only illegal aliens, who are neither citizens nor voters, rival lesbians and gay men . . . [as the objects] of such sustained, extreme, and intense distaste."¹⁷ Additionally, the misperception that LesBiGays constitute a wealthy constituency able to buy political influence may discourage some heterosexual voters from sympathizing with the actual powerlessness that LesBiGays experience.¹⁸ In fact, the widespread vetting of wildly exaggerated demographic information has provided fuel for the fires of social conservatives and the religious right, who have argued that well-heeled LesBiGays are surely in no need of "special rights,"¹⁹ a theme picked up by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his stinging dissent in Romer v. Evans ²⁰

Thus, it should come as no surprise that it is still legal in thirty-nine states to fire LesBiGays on account of their sexuality.²¹ It should come as no surprise that far fewer than one percent of all elected officials in America are uncloseted LesBiGays.²² And it should come as no surprise that, even though a quarter of LesBiGays supported George W. Bush for President and a third backed Republican congressional candidates in the 2000 elections,²³ the Republican Party's platform did not soften its harsh posture opposing LesBiGay civil rights protection.²⁴ Further, the party confined the only openly gay man to address the 2000 Republican National Convention, Congressman Jim Kolbe of Arizona, to speaking on matters other than his sexuality.²⁵ Not a single Bush campaign or administration official attended the postelection celebratory breakfast of the Republican Unity Coalition (a new political group containing LesBiGay party members).²⁶ And, finally, it surely should come as no surprise that Bush selected John Ashcroft for Attorney General, though he views homosexuality as a sin and apparently acted on that belief as a Senator to block the appointment of gay philanthropist James C. Hormel as American ambassador to Luxembourg.²⁷