Trump Upholds Obama’s LGBTQ Anti-Discrimination Order

Brittany M. Hughes | January 31, 2017
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In a pretty clear message to liberal LGBT activists who seem to think Donald Trump will revoke gay Americans’ rights and start stoning queer people to death in the streets, the White House on Tuesday released a statement Tuesday saying the 45th president will uphold an Obama-era executive order that protects LGBTQ individuals who work for federal contractors from workplace discrimination.

Here’s the brief statement in full, as posted on whitehouse.gov:

President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election. The President is proud to have been the first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression. The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump.

The statement splatters a good bit of egg on the faces of extreme left-wing propagandists like those over at Bustle, who less than 24 hours earlier had fretted that “an anti-LGBTQ order from Donald Trump is reportedly in the works.”

Despite never having really touted an anti-LGBTQ platform or threatened to strip gay Americans of their civil rights, Trump has somehow earned the moniker of an anti-gay bigot from his left-wing detractors (who regularly chant that Trump is “anti-gay” at protests and paint him as "dangerous" to transgender rights). Rather the opposite, Trump was at worst neutral on North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill,” which mandated that public restrooms be available to individuals based on their biological gender. During the campaign, Trump said he supported a state’s right to make such decisions, but indicated he personally doesn’t much care where someone pees.

In fact, a group of LGBT supporters proudly waved a rainbow flag at one of Trump’s campaign rallies back in October, with one supporter claiming on Twitter that Trump is “the most pro-LGBT Pres candidate ever nominated by either party.” And, while Trump has gone on the record as stating he’s a proponent of traditional marriage between one man and one woman, he’s never taken a hardline stance against gay marriage.

And if this latest White House statement is any indication, no one should expect any anti-LGBT legislation to take high priority in the Trump administration anytime soon.

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