No Pride From Trump

As we noted on this blog yesterday, June is LGBTQ Pride Month. Where you would have found no recognition of this is from Li’l Donnie Trump.

 

For the second year in a row, the Trump administration has ignored LGBTQ Pride Month.

 

By the way, Trump did declare the month of June to be:

• National Homeownership Month
• National Ocean Month
• Great Outdoors Month
• National Caribbean-American Heritage Month.

So if you are a transgender person who is also a Caribbean-American homeowner who likes the ocean and the outdoors, you’re in luck.

 Otherwise, as far as Trump is concerned, you can fuck off, queers. 

Which should not be a surprise.  

Yeah, when Trump was running for president, he would toss off a line or two to make it look like he was sympathetic to LGBTQ people. 

 

When he was running for office during Pride Month 2016, tweeted this:

 

Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2016

 

Which you will note is less of a message of support for the LGBT community and more of a dig at Hillary and a chance to riff on his favorite topic, keeping people from getting into the country who are going to steal your women and rape your cattle. 

 

At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Trump addressed “our LGBTQ citizens” with this: “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”

 

Again, not so much a message of support for “our LGBTQ citizens” but just more of the usual boilerplate ragging on Muslims. (I mean, what other “hateful foreign ideology” would Li’l Donnie be obsessed with?)  

 

You may recall that when Trump got to that part of the speech, he said “LGBTQ” very haltingly, paying a very grudging lip service to the LGBTQ community just to get that out of the way. “Look, I said something about the gays, all right?” 

 

But since becoming president, even that much grudging lip service to the LGBTQ community is more than Li’l Donnie can handle. 

 

• Since his inauguration, his administration removed references to LGBTQ people from a number of federal government websites.

• Trump also disbanded the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, which since 1995 had advised presidents on HIV/AIDS policy.
• While Trump did declare December 1 to be World AIDS Day, though in his 2017 proclamation he did not mention the LGBTQ community, which is disproportionately impacted by the virus.
• A number of the president’s appointees have also been criticized by LGBTQ advocates for their extensive records of opposing gay rights. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has a long anti-LGBTQ track record, even reiterated his opposition to same-sex marriage during his confirmation hearing in April.
• In perhaps President Trump’s most direct attempt to roll back recent gains made by the LGBTQ community, he attempted in July 2017 to ban transgender people from serving “in any capacity” in the military with a series of surprise tweets.

 

I have absolutely zero respect for this fucking moron but I will give Trump this: the man knows his audience. And that audience of under educated, gun loving, racist white evangelicals wants absolutely nothing to do with any letter in LGBTQ.  And from My Pants (Mike Pence, dammit!) on down, Trump has surrounded himself with people for whom marginalizing LGBTQ people is right at the top priority of their religion.

 

LGBTQ Pride Month was first proclaimed by President Bill Clinton in June 1999, and then again in June 2000, though back then it was called Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. In his statement, Clinton noted that he signed the 1998 executive order that made it possible for people of any sexual orientation to work in the federal government and to receive security clearances.

 

“Today, more openly gay and lesbian individuals serve in senior posts throughout the Federal Government than during any other Administration,” Clinton’s June 2000 proclamation stated.

 

President George W. Bush declined to declare June as Pride Month, and it was not until the election of Barack Obama that the tradition started again. Obama issued a proclamation every year he was in office.

 

This is from Obama’s June 2015 proclamation: “All people deserve to live with dignity and respect, free from fear and violence, and protected against discrimination, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. During Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, we celebrate the proud legacy LGBT individuals have woven into the fabric of our Nation, we honor those who have fought to perfect our Union, and we continue our work to build a society where every child grows up knowing that their country supports them, is proud of them, and has a place for them exactly as they are.”

 

Later that month, when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, President Obama ordered the White House be flooded with rainbow lights.

 

Chad Griffin, president of the national LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, had this to say: “It is clear that failing to recognize Pride Month is intentional, just as it was last year. Trump and Pence are obsessed with erasing us. But we will not be erased, and in November, the White House is due for a rude awakening on their blatant discrimination.”

 

How can we expect Trump to extoll a month designed to celebrate the ideal that “All people deserve to live with dignity and respect” when he habitually treats his office, the people of this nation and of this world with virtually no dignity and respect?

 

I have pride in those who are in and are allies of the LGBTQ community. It is not a feeling I can extend to the feckless leadership of our nation.