It’s basically the same logic behind people voting for Joe Biden, who was strongly in favor of women’s rights, but not voting for Kamala Harris, because “women aren’t good leaders.” There’s a fairly wide range of prejudice that falls short of, “They should be politically persecuted,” but which still relies on stereotypes and negative assumptions when judging the character of someone in the targeted group. Gay men are often stereotyped as being weak and/or feminine, and those traits are considered undesirable in a presidential candidate. And, of course, there’s a lot of more blatant homophobes who just don’t consider their homophobia the most important issue at the ballot box, but only up to the point where they might have to vote for one.
I don’t think it’s productive to look for logical consistency in bigotry.
In a vacuum, I get that someone could vote for Biden (a) despite his position on this or that, (b) and yet, due to sexism, not vote for Harris. But, by all that’s holy: for Biden to slowly and patiently explain his position when it comes to choosing Harris from among all others to be his VP — his hand-picked successor — the one person he taps for the one-heartbeat-away Backup President slot — and for a sexist to hear that, and figure, hell, yeah, I’ll vote for the guy who’d pick a woman for that job!
And the same sexist then hears that Harris picked a man for the VP job, which — to a sexist — would be a better choice than the one made by the guy he voted for?
I guess it’s a failure of imagination on my part, but: they’re not just dumb enough to be sexist, but dumb enough to be lousy at being sexist?
I’m reluctantly starting to figure you’re right.
Presidential nominees pick their running mates for all kinds of reasons, but “Will this person help me get elected?” is always going to be at the top of the list, no matter what else they say. Yes, yes, of course - the running mate should be qualified and experienced and capable of serving as President if something happens to the President, but it is first and foremost a question of political utility. And so it was for Joe Biden in August 2020.