Lindsey Olin Graham, 71, longtime Republican senator from South Carolina, died Saturday night, July 11, at his home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He is survived by his sister, Darlene Graham Nordone, who is nine years younger than he and for whom, in his early 20s, he became legal guardian after their parents both died in just over a year’s time.
Darlene Graham Nordone has been appointed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to replace her brother in the U.S. Senate through the end of the current term, which expires on Jan. 3, 2027.
Lindsey Graham was up for re-election this year and had defeated several challengers in June to win the Republican nomination. The state of South Carolina will hold a special GOP primary on Aug. 11 to replace him as the Republican nominee on the November ballot. Annie Andrews is the Democratic nominee for that office.
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As Thumper’s mama reminded him in Bambi, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”
But then, as Alice Roosevelt Longworth (and later Claree Belcher) said, “If you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me.”
And, of course, there is Bette Davis’ alleged comment on the death of Joan Crawford: “You should never say bad things about the dead; you should only say good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”
I have been torn these last several days since Lindsey Graham’s death: I was always taught that you don’t speak ill of the dead. And I admit that I have cringed more than once at some of the, let’s say, “less than charitable” things some folks have been saying about the late senator.
At the same time, though, I was also always taught not to be a hypocrite. And to sit here and pretend that I feel any grief over Lindsey Graham’s death, to pretend I had even a smidgen of respect for the man would be the absolute height of hypocrisy.
Lindsey Graham was, throughout his tenure first in the U.S. House of Representatives and then in the U.S. Senate, one of the staunchest enemies of the LGBTQ+ community:
He applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling upholding state bans on transgender student athletes. In 2015, when the Supreme Court issued its Obergefell ruling legalizing marriage equality, Graham expressed his opposition, calling himself “a proud defender of traditional marriage” and “a supporter of religious liberty.”
In 2022, he voted against the Respect for Marriage Act that codified federal protections for married same-sex couples. He co-sponsored the First Amendment Defense Act, proposed legislation that would allow people to discriminate against same-sex couples as long as they claimed that same-sex marriage goes against their moral and/or religious convictions. And he voted for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage.
Way back in 2010, he voted against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which was, in effect, a vote against allowing LGBTQ+ people to serve openly in the U.S. military. In 2020, he signed a brief to the Supreme Court defending a taxpayer-funded agency’s right to discriminate against same-sex couples looking to adopt. In 2013, he voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would have protected LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment. In 2000, he argued against passage of federal hate crime legislation, claiming it was unnecessary and would “divide Americans.”
(The list goes on, but my space here is limited. Head over to GLAAD.org/Gap/Lindsey-Graham to get a more complete accounting of his anti-LGBTQ+ stances, arguments and votes and more.)
What makes all these declarations and arguments and votes even more heinous, in my opinion, is the fact that this man who fought so hard to deny equality to LGBTQ+ people was, in all likelihood and according to allegations by numerous male escorts, a gay man himself.
Talk about the height of hypocrisy and cowardice! And we haven’t even touched on the hypocrisy of his rabid support for Donald Trump and his right-wing administration after describing Trump in 2016, before his first election as president, as “a demagogue” and “a kook” who was “a wrecking ball for the future of the Republican Party” and “unfit for office.” In March 2016, he told CBS News, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”
Compare that to what Graham had to say in June of this year after Trump endorsed his re-election bid: “Mr. President, you’re not far behind God.”
So, yeah. It’s hard, really, to not speak ill of this particular dead man.
I guess, truth be told, I have always felt a little bit sorry for Lindsey Graham. How awful it must have been to feel like he had to not just hide his own true identity but also attack and work to oppress others just to keep his own truth hidden and maintain his hold on the power he craved. Seventy-one years living in a closet — what a miserable life that must have been.
And I feel sympathy for Lindsey Graham’s sister. She has lost not just her brother but also the man who stepped in and raised her when their parents died. Condolences to her.
But, as Bishop Talbert Swan said on his social media pages, “Condolences are not the same thing as rewriting history. Lindsey Graham’s political legacy deserves to be remembered honestly.”
And it is, speaking honestly, a legacy of hate — hate of others and, perhaps worse, hate of himself.
Tammye Nash is managing editor of Dallas Voice. The opinions expressed here are her own.