Memo to the LGBT community: Donald Trump is not your enemy

[kindy64]

Whaat??? (best said in .) Trumps not going to round up all the gays and put them in a rainbow prison...

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/ci...your-enemy

“This morning, LGBTQ people — particularly young people and their parents — woke up scared and filled with questions about our country and their place in it,” Sarah McBride, national spokeswoman for the LGBT Left Human Rights Campaign, said. McBride added that “much of our community's progress over the last eight years is at risk after yesterday's election.”

But what progress was McBride talking about? What exactly would a President Trump take away from the 14% of LGBT citizens that voted for him, this author included?

There are no signs that the LGBT community will be in the crosshairs of a Trump administration. In fact that evidence is just the opposite.

In the 1980s & 1990s Trump donated heavily to charities that focused on the AIDS outbreak. When he floated a third party presidential run in 1999 he went on record saying he would consider adding sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act. Trump is also believed to be the first private club owner in Palm Beach — in this case Mar-a-Lago — to admit a gay couple. This is not the resume of an LGBT foe.

Fast forward to the 2016 election and Trump’s view of the LGBT community remained unchanged. In June 2015 he forcefully condemned the terror attack at Pulse nightclub, a LGBT club. In condemning this attack, Trump bravely spoke an ugly truth many in the elite dare not speak – radical Islam and the LGBT community do not mix. Trump took this truth to Cleveland when he vowed to protect the LGBT community.

“Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted LGBTQ community,” Trump told the Republican delegates. “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.”

During the same convention, Trump asked gay Silicon Valley tycoon Peter Thiel to address the Republican delegates. Thiel accepted then and is now a part of Trump’s transition team. And now Trump is said to be considering Richard Grenell, an openly gay man, to be his ambassador to the U.N.

Trump, therefore, does not fit the LGBT Left narrative about Republican politicians. This narrative holds that since the Moral Majority of the 1980s the entire Republican Party is connected to the bromance of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

[artyboy]

Hmmmmm not sure about that.

[kindy64]

Hmmmmm not sure about that.

Well, time will tell of course, but those are all verifiable facts...

[TheShoveler]

didn't Trump say that he was willing to sign the FADA, a law which would make second class citizens of gays, if it was sent to his desk?

[kindy64]

didn't Trump say that he was willing to sign the FADA, a law which would make second class citizens of gays, if it was sent to his desk?

Any law will depend on how it is worded.

And to say something as broad as it will make gays 2nd class citizens is scaremongering.

A real debate does need to take place with regard to how we all need to respect each other's true civil rights, and how best to protect them.

[TigerLover]

I really don't think Trump cares one way or the other. The danger is that in his ambivalence he'll be easily swayed by Pence and we won't know that's happend until Trump signs some crazy anti-gay law.

[meridannight]

Any law will depend on how it is worded.

And to say something as broad as it will make gays 2nd class citizens is scaremongering.

A real debate does need to take place with regard to how we all need to respect each other's true civil rights, and how best to protect them.

I don't know what FADA is but --- in a tolerant society built on equality and individual rights -- why would you need a law to segregate different groups of people based on their personal attributes?

[deephiance]

this is all based on the fact that we believe that a country's leader can actually influence change. I mean who is REALLY the head of state?

[meridannight]

Nevermind. I checked out FADA. What a load of crap.

[kindy64]

People self segregate all by themselves, and they have the right to do so.

Should people be forced to do things that are against their religious/moral convictions. It's a serious concern deserving careful deliberation.

FADA is meant to bar the federal government from taking action against people who believe marriage can only be between a man and a woman. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-cong...-bill/2802

I wouldn't support FADA but I could support a law that balances religious convictions with other competing interests