Vox criticized President Donald Trump Wednesday for failing to recognize “Pride Month” as a hallowed tradition for LGBTQ citizens, a community that both former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton lauded during their times in office.
Trump “promised to protect LGBTQ people” during his campaign, but he failed to even give a passing acknowledgement to June as Pride Month, Vox said. Following the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that permitted same-sex marriage, the Obama administration showed their support by lighting up the White House in rainbow colors. Many activists now see Trump’s lack of visual support for the LGBTQ community as proof that he is not a strong supporter of gay rights.
“This lack of action comes despite Trump’s promises on the campaign trail that he will protect ‘L, G, B, T … Q’ people, even posing with the rainbow flag to signal that he’s a different kind of Republican on these issues,” Vox said. “Many people in LGBTQ communities were skeptical of his promises, but they were commitments that Trump made.”
Ever since the 2016 terror attack at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla., the LGBTQ community has stressed the importance of educating the public on homophobia within the United States.
“By forgoing something as simple as declaring June as Pride Month, Trump has shown how unserious he was about his promises,” Vox said. “Orlando demonstrated to the movement and others why celebrating Pride each year was still necessary: despite all the legal and cultural progress in the past few years, someone still felt emboldened enough to launch a horrific attack in an LGBTQ space.”
“By failing to recognize Pride Month even as the anniversary of such an attack approaches, Trump has offered yet another reminder about the progress left to be made,” Vox said.
Vox magazine refers to Mike Pence’s support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana, angered the LGBTQ community for allowing businesses to refuse certain services to gay and transgender people such as for same-sex marriage.
“The Trump administration has shown how fragile LGBTQ rights gains really are. The administration is largely made up of politicians who have been staunchly anti-LGBTQ for their whole public careers, like Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And what the administration has done so far has signaled that it would rather pull the country in a direction less friendly to LGBTQ rights,” states Vox.
Vox notes Religious Freedom protection and increased Trumps’s Temporary Travel Ban as the strongest inhibitors to LGBTQ rights. “The impact Trump will have on LGBTQ rights can only grow from here,” says Vox. Despite the fact that Trump has not mentioned Pride Month, he has taken steps to acknowledge support for LGBTQ rights. Whether it is from permitting Caitlyn Jenner to use the female restroom at the Trump Tower as well as temporarily banning immigration from seven countries that have some of the most oppressive policies to gay people.
While the Orlando Shootings were the worst attack on LGBTQ Americans in United States History, Trump has taken significant measures to combat radical Islamist terrorists and their homophobic values from harming members of the LGBTQ community.
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