Trump is Not Fooling the LGBTQ Community

Trump is Not Fooling the LGBTQ Community

Donald Trump opened a rally in Colorado while holding a LGBTQ rainbow flag. “LGBTs for Trump” was written in black marker on the flag. Did he speak on LGBTQ issues during the event? Trump’s speech covered his usual talking points: repealing Obamacare, a corrupt election, and bashing Hillary Clinton.

LGBTQ advocates don’t believe Trump’s gesture and 72% of LGBTQ voters will vote for Clinton in the election. Trump’s choice of running mate, did not help him gain any points with the LGBTQ community. Mike Pence has a history of supporting anti-LGBTQ laws, such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and trying to overturn marriage equality.

Here are some quotes from the Trump / Pence ticket about LGBTQ rights and issues.

Transgender Bathroom Access
Trump: After previously stating that North Carolina should “leave it the way it is,” and permit transgender individuals to use the restroom they feel most comfortable using, Donald Trump told ABC News on May 13, 2016, “I believe it should be states’ rights and the state should make the decision. They’re more capable of making the decision.” Trump made this comment after the Obama administration issued guidance directing public schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms matching their gender identity.

Pence: In response to the directive issued by the Obama administration on May 13, 2016, stating that transgender public school students must be afforded the right to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identities, Pence said, “The federal government has no business getting involved in issues of this nature.”

Marriage Equality
Trump: During a November 2013 interview on MSNBC, Trump said “I think I’m evolving, and I think I’m a very fair person, but I have been for traditional marriage. I am for traditional marriage, I am for a marriage between a man and a woman.”

Pence: In 2006, Pence supported a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Pence said in a speech that cited a Harvard researcher, “societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family.” Pence also said that being gay is a choice and that preventing gay couples from marrying was not discrimination, but a means of enforcing “God’s idea.”

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Pence: He supported Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy that prohibited soldiers from openly identifying as gay until it was ended in 2011. Pence told CNN in 2010 that without the policy, the military could become “a backdrop for social experimentation.”

Don’t forget that Election Day is Tuesday November 8th. Go out and vote!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Parents Who Support Your LGBT Family AND Trump?

I recently came across this great article on Huffington Post, When You’re LGBT And Your Family Is Voting For Trump. Oh good, I thought, I’m not the only one out there.

My husband and I have supportive families, mine being the most supportive of all. My mother will proudly tell any Pastor that her son didn’t choose to be gay, and then proceed to ask him when did he choose to be straight. Both families came to our wedding, and both families love and adore their grandson. But both families, support Donald Trump.

In all honesty, I think Trump supports the LGBT community. A man of that level of wealth, living in NYC, I don’t think he’s the religious anti-gay candidate like he is showcasing to the Republican Party. He’s simply telling them what they want to hear. But Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence has been on record applauding businesses for firing employees who are openly gay, encourages Religious Freedom Laws that directly discriminate against my family and is on task to see that the Supreme Court overturns Marriage Equality.

When getting into a discussion surrounding the Trump-Pence ticket, families supporting them often say there is more to worry about in this election then LGBT “issues”. For my husband and I, there simply isn’t. Put yourself in our shoes. If a candidate was running for President who threatened to denounce your marriage, end your ability to adopt children and force you into the closet for fear you could legally be fired for being straight – would you support them?

When it comes down to protecting my family, that is the only issue I am worried about.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Gays for Trump, but Trump for Gays?

I’ve never been one to fully stand with one particular party on all of their issues and stances. There are laws and bills put forward by both Republicans and Democrats that I can often stand behind, or stand against. Whether it’s fiscal responsibility, gun control measures or family rights there are multiple view points and reasons why we vote the way we do.

Recently, I came across this article, highlighting why some LGBT community members are pro-Trump, which immediately confused me.  As much as I don’t want to vote based on one issue or area (I value looking at a candidate’s full plan, ideas and past) I can’t look past the fact that Trump has aligned himself with Governor Pence.

Pence just spent the past year advocating and signing into law a bill that directly discriminated against our community.  What if this man takes this plan with him to DC?  Marriage equality isn’t exactly “equal” if a business has the right to turn my husband and I away if they don’t believe we should be married in the first place. I can’t imagine having to explain to my child why a restaurant or a business just asked us to leave.  Equality means equal and I fear Gays for Trump don’t realize that Trump-Pence isn’t for Gays.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Vote! When People Raise Their Voices There is Power

Vote! When People Raise Their Voices There is Power

While this is certainly not the case for Everyperson in Everytown, USA, it seems that something is happening across this nation.  Some of us have begun to remember that what we want matters.  Those of us who were napping or not getting to the polls or forgetting to ask for an absentee ballot have started rubbing our eyes, asking ‘Wait, what?’  If we weren’t before, we’re sitting up and tuning in.  More of us have started to care more and as a result, things are shifting.

Unlike in other countries where voting is compulsory, in this country, it’s “just” an option.  This is, of course, another one of the many freedoms Americans enjoy: choice.  We have the option to care or not care.  It seems that in order for us to care most, the things we care about most must be threatened.  Our freedom must be at stake.  And that’s the thing: there’s a lot of freedom at stake, depending on which way things go, depending on who’s voting and how they vote.

Election day feels like the perfect opportunity to take a minute and be reminded of what the Declaration of Independence states:

 

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

Voting allows us the freedom and the right to “alter or abolish” and institute the new.  No, it doesn’t happen overnight.  But as Americans we’re fortunate to have had keen foresight from our founding fathers.  Thanks to their vision of freedom and equality, we have a foundation which allows for change, should we want it.  And it certainly sounds like we want it.

 

When people raise their voices there is power.

 

Blog entries we love about voting:

Seth Godin’s “I’m not a Cobbler”

and

Dulcie Witman’s “Selection Day”

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,