Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, released the following statement ahead of Hillary Clinton’s speech addressing Donald Trump’s campaign of prejudice, paranoia and bigotry.
“Donald Trump has built an entire campaign based on division, fear and undermining equality,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Trump has threatened to undo crucial protections for LGBTQ people in the U.S. and around the globe, and courted the votes of anti-equality extremists. It’s also important to remember that the LGBTQ community is as diverse as the fabric of our nation. We are women and immigrants and Latinos and African Americans and people of all faiths — and Donald Trump’s campaign of hate has become a danger to us all.”
Donald Trump has embraced an anti-LGBTQ agenda from the start — opposing marriage equality and embracing laws that threaten the fundamental equality of LGBTQ people in their homes, schools and communities. He further doubled down on his opposition to equality by putting Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on the ticket. Pence became a national disgrace in 2015, for his “license to discriminate” bill that could have allowed businesses to deny service to LGBTQ people.
Over the last several months, Donald Trump has only burnished his anti-LGBTQ credentials. Last week, Trump was endorsed by James Dobson, who founded two of the most notorious anti-equality organizations in the nation: Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, which has since been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dobson linked the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., with “turning our back on God” and the “redefinition” of marriage.” Dobson has said that same-sex marriage is the “fall of Western civilization itself” and was part of a “master plan” for destruction of family. He even suggested marriage equality could lead to a “civil war.” Dobson has called Obama’s transgender student guidelines an effort to “sow chaos” and “impose tyranny.” Trump has also campaigned alongside Tony Perkins — the current leader of the Family Research Council — and is scheduled to speak at his Values Voter Summit on September 9 in Washington, DC.
Just one day after the attack on Pulse nightclub — the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history — Donald Trump bragged on television that he would be a better president for LGBTQ people, despite holding an array of anti-LGBTQ policy positions and selecting Mike Pence as his running mate. On Aug. 12, the two-month anniversary of the Pulse nightclub tragedy, Trump appeared in Orlando not to meet with victims’ families or pay respects, but to court votes from anti-LGBTQ activists including Liberty Counsel, which supports and defends archaic laws criminalizing homosexuality with harsh punishments around the world, and has condemned President Obama and the U.S. government for speaking out against such laws, saying, “America should not be trying to make that country act in an immoral way.”
In addition to Donald Trump’s own vile views and behavior, Trump Campaign CEO Steve Bannon has launched vile smears against transgender people while he worked for Breitbart News. Trump’s new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway is a former pollster for the National Organization for Marriage who once objected to the inclusion of openly LGBTQ people in the media, saying of one television show that featured a lesbian couple that people, “…don’t want their kids looking at a cartoon with a bunch of lesbian mothers.”
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