With Pence in a Pickle, His Top Priority Is Attacking Trans Youth

One of the things I’ve picked up and written about previously is that the best thing to come out of these classified document searches are the aerial shots we get of the homes being searched. I’m sick of seeing Mar-a-Lago and have no desire to visit there.

President Joe Biden has a lovely waterfront home in Wilmington, Del., and as for his Rehoboth beach house, I’ve run by that an infinite number of times during frequent visits to the Delaware beach towns.

Then there’s the estate — that’s what it looks like — that the Pences' own in rural Indiana. I know that homes are probably not expensive in that area, but for a simple, humble couple like Mother and Mike, it’s rather ostentatious. There’s plenty of room in that house to store classified documents and for Mike to hide from Mother and be naughty.

I always thought former Vice President Mike Pence didn’t make that much money, but wow, was I wrong. Being sanctimonious while bashing gays, lesbians, trans, and queer people must be very lucrative. No wonder he attacks our community with such vitriol. He’s got to pay the mortgage on that monster abode.

There was a second, consensual (again, a word that the Pences must take umbrage at since it calls sex to mind) search of the former vice president’s sprawling estate that hate pays for last week, and another classified document was found. It’s almost like a race to see who is hiding the most. Poor Mike — he’s hiding a lot more than documents, but I digress.

This search follows a previous one by Pence’s team that resulted in documents with classified markings turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration last month. These were "inadvertently" boxed up and found in the former vice president's home.

And last week, well, the feds can’t seem to get enough of Pence. He was subpoenaed by the DOJ’s special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection. As you might recall, despite Trump whipping Pence into a frenzy (oops, again, that sounds too sexually deviant for the Pences), the former VP showed shocking fortitude in defying Trump and certifying the 2020 presidential election results and Joe Biden as president. Trump called Pence a vulgar name that, ironically, Pence knows little about.

But Pence seems to be living up to the derogatory meaning of that term. Word comes that Pence is going to fight Smith's subpoena, which should come as no surprise to any of us that Pence is running away with his tail between his legs.

With Pence’s life in complete disarray and with him being up to his eyeballs in tawdry behavior, it boggles the mind that instead of concentrating on this issue at hand, Pence feels the need to lambaste the trans community in what would be his first campaign ads to run in Iowa.

According to the Associated Press, Pence is revving up his 2024 presidential campaign by “rallying conservatives against transgender-affirming policies in schools, like one adopted in an eastern Iowa district last year.”

“The strength of our nation is tied to the strength of our families, and we cannot stand idly by as the radical left attempts to indoctrinate our children behind parents’ backs,” Pence said in a statement provided to the AP. “Advancing American Freedom [Pence's organization] will not rest until parental rights are restored in Iowa and across the nation.”

Oh, yes, if we don’t do something about these transgender kids, we will turn freedom into the abysmally repressed Handmaid’s Tale Republic of Gilead. Wait! That’s exactly what Mike Pence wants to do with our freedom, so something isn’t right here. Something isn’t right with him either, so I guess it makes sense.

While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis promotes anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, his challengers are suddenly realizing that they must be more “anti-queer” than he is. Last week, Trump hinted that DeSantis is a pedophile, so perhaps Pence felt the need to pile on with his own obsession with sexuality.

Or does Pence feel left out? I’ve noticed that lots of pundits are gaga over Trump versus DeSantis. That’s all they talk about. They aren’t salivating over the fact that Pence has classified docs — it’s almost like the pundits and prognosticators are saying, “Wake me up when the Pence thing is over.” These same folks are also not spending countless hours talking about Pence’s subpoena from Smith.

Pence knows that his tried-and-true way to get attention is to blast our community. That’s what he’s known for. In fact, according to a New Yorker story, during a conversation between Trump, Pence, and a legal scholar, when the chitchat turned to gay rights, Trump allegedly motioned to Pence and said, "Don't ask that guy — he wants to hang them all!"

The anti-trans rhetoric that is being pushed by Republicans is repulsive and anything but Christian. Pence flaunts his Christianity like Shangela flaunts her vivaciousness (I bet myself I couldn’t put Pence and Shangela in the same sentence). Pence has nothing else to talk about. He did absolutely nothing as Trump’s VP — except certifying the election — and that action isn’t going to win him any votes from the base. But bashing gays, trans people, and drag queens is a sure-fire way to fire up the base.

If trans youth, drag brunches, and story hours became the top planks for the Republican Party in 2024, you can be sure that Pence will do everything he can to lead the way. Pence is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He comes off so “aw, shucks,” but his hatred toward us knows no bounds. He pretends to be so loving and religious, and the religious right will use anti-trans oratory, like Pence’s, to try to claw its way back to relevance after the abortion fiasco.

They’re already starting. During the Super Bowl, we all saw those ads for Jesus pop up. We now know they were paid for by Hobby Lobby, the vehemently anti-LGBTQ+ retailer. I’m sure Mike and Mother, upon hearing this news, dropped a fortune at their nearby Hobby Lobby the day after the Super Bowl.

Friends of mine recently asked me why I’m so hard on Mike Pence. “What did he ever do to you?” one of my friends said. I told my friend to Google Mike Pence and LGBTQ, and then come back to me and ask me the same question. I haven’t heard from him, so I guess he knows why.

In the meantime, if Special Counsel Smith can’t get in touch with Pence to appear before the January 6 grand jury, he should order the FBI to get a search warrant and case the Pence home. My guess is that Mike is cloistered in a hideaway room, hunched over a small television, watching the DVD compilation of RuPaul’s Drag Race's greatest hits.

John Casey is editor at large for The Advocate.

Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.