GOP House Speaker candidate Steve Scalise has a long anti-LGBTQ+ record

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) won the Republican nomination to become speaker of the House yesterday. It’s unclear if he’ll get enough votes to actually assume the position, but if he does, he’ll likely push anti-LGBTQ+ policies, just as he has done for his entire congressional career.

The 56-year-old politician entered the U.S. House in 2008 and has served at the whip for his party, ensuring that GOP members vote in line with their party’s majority. Scalise made headlines in 2017 when he survived a shooting during a baseball practice of the Republican team for the annual Congressional Baseball Game and again in August when he was diagnosed with blood cancer.

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Scalise opposes same-sex marriage. He has supported a constitutional amendment to ban federal recognition of same-sex marriage. He opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, a 2022 bill that requires the federal and state governments to recognize legal same-sex marriages. He also supported the First Amendment Defense Act, an unsuccessful 2015 federal “religious freedom” bill that would prevent the federal government from punishing anyone who discriminates against same-sex married couples.

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He has opposed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military’s ban on out LGBTQ+ service members; the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which offers enhanced investigative resources and punishments for anti-LGBTQ+ violence; and the Equality Act; a national LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination law. Scalise also voted against including LGBTQ+ victims of domestic violence in the 2013 Violence Against Women Act.

Scalise once spoke at a meeting of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, a group founded by David Duke, the former grand wizard of the racist terrorism organization the Ku Klux Klan, The Washington Blade noted. He reportedly once said that he was like Duke but “without the baggage.” 

The other possible candidate for House speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), has his own anti-LGBTQ+ record. But right now, neither Scalise nor Jordan have enough votes to become speaker. House GOP members remain divided on who to vote for, fracturing the 217 votes needed for the role.

It’s entirely possible that no one will become speaker in the immediate future. It’s also possible that there will be a repeat of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) chaotic election in January, in which he had to give major concessions to far-right House members like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), including a mechanism making it easier to remove him as speaker — something which ultimately led to his ouster.