Anti-gay past presidents
Mike Pence is the Worst Vice President for LGBTQ People In Contemporary History
Pence attempted to license discrimination against LGBTQ people by signing into law a religious exemption designed to create swiss cheese out of nondiscrimination laws.
This move amount the state:
$60 million in lost business from 12 conventions
$365k of taxpayer funds spent on a PR firm to help dampen the backlash and aim to restore the reputation of Indiana
...and the respect of millions
In 2007, Pence stoked far-right worry of LGBTQ non-discrimination protections by lying about ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act):
"Under ENDA, employees around the country who possess religious opinions that are opposed to homosexual habit would be forced, in effect, to lay down their rights and convictions at the door. For example, if an employee keeps a Bible in his or her cubicle, if an employee displays a Bible verse on their desk, that employee could be claimed by a homosexual colleague to be creating a hostile work environment because the queer employee objects to passages in the Bible relating to homosexuality."
Meanwhile, Pence blocked hate crimes prevention leg by HRC Staff • Post submitted by Lucas Acosta (he/him), former Deputy Director of Communications, Politics HRC lists Trump's persistent attacks against the LGBTQ community after the RNC claims he's taken "unprecedented steps" in support of the community. HRC President Alphonso David: “The RNC is hallucinating and developing misleading and disingenuous rhetoric. Yes, Trump has taken many ‘unprecedented’ steps, but those steps possess been to undermine and eliminate rights protecting LGBTQ people, not empower us. Appointing a tiny handful of homosexual people out of thousands of nominations and making a very few -- and unfullfilled -- pledges can hardly qualify as accomplishments. Don’t gaslight us. The Trump-Pence administration is the most virulently anti-LGBTQ administration in decades -- the RNC cannot put lipstick on a pig.” Here’s a list of attacks the Trump-Pence administration has levied against LGBTQ people: For the full list of Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ people, go to HRC.org/Trump. "I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, experience is not worth living. And you ... and you ... and you ... have got to give them hope." -Harvey Milk, "You Cannot Stay on Hope Alone" speech When he won the election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, Harvey Milk made history as the first openly gay elected official in California, and one of the first in the United States. His camera store and campaign headquarters at 575 Castro Street (and his apartment above it) were centers of community activism for a wide range of human rights, environmental, labor, and neighborhood issues. During his tenure as supervisor, he helped pass a homosexual rights ordinance for the city of San Francisco that prohibited anti-gay discrimination in housing and employment. Harvey Milk has been honored twice under President Obama's administration. First, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. In 2014, he was honored by the United States Postal Service with a Forever Mark in 2014. To celebrate Presidents' Day, we at Seattle Identity are honoring the words and actions of executive leaders who have celebrated us. It is hard to go back more than a few years and see anything but empty pursuits of ‘tolerance’ or outright silence when considering LGBTQIA+ Americans, but today we pay homage to the few presidents who own championed improved conditions for our LGBTQIA+ siblings. Lyndon B. Johnson (sort of): Decades after passage, Barack Obama would laud the 1964 Civil Rights Act as instrumental in opening the door for other many other anti-discrimination laws and judicial decisions, most recently Bostock v Clayton Co, GA, which codified employment anti-discrimination for queer and transgender Americans. However, the administration itself was not warm to this idea. In a 1965 letter to LGBTQIA+ forebear Frank Kameny, VP Humphrey insisted that the Civil Rights Act was ‘not relevant to the problems of homosexuals’. Hence, LBJ can optimal be described as an accidental LGBTQIA+ advocate. Thanks (sort of)! Bill Clinton (not really, though) Bill Clinton was a politically nuanced commander, allowing h
The Real List of Trump’s “Unprecedented Steps” for the LGBTQ Community
Harvey Milk (1930 - 1978)
Selected Library Resources:
A Brief Chronology of Presidential LGBTQIA+ Civil Rights Achievements