Nearly every one of Donald Trump's cabinet-level picks has trafficked in homophobia for years. Here's how Trump is making good on his pledge to "protect our LGBTQ citizens."
Vice President Mike Pence
Mike Pence's illustrious career of treating LGBTQ Americans as lesser human beings, opposing their right to serve in the military and to marry, and trying to divert federal funding for AIDS away from AIDS groups and toward groups promoting the dangerous practice of "conversion therapy" is widely documented.
Expect Pence’s Indiana law granting religious folks special rights to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans to serve as a model for how Republicans will seek to attack the rights of LGBTQ citizens. Yes, it was billed as a RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) in the mold of the federal RFRA from the ‘90s, but it went much much further in giving private citizens a basis to justify discrimination and defend themselves against lawsuits, and not just those brought by the federal government. “Religious freedom” will be the rallying cry for attacking LGBTQ freedom in Trump’s administration.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
From Right Wing Watch:
Sessions has been a staunch opponent of LGBT rights, opposing the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and saying that hate crimes protections for LGBT people “cheapen the civil rights movement.” In 2006, Sessions voted to advance a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. After the Supreme Court extended marriage equality nationwide, Sessions said that gay people could already get unofficially married:
“People could get married before the Supreme Court ruling, two people could call themselves married” he explained, saying that same-sex couples could “go off at the beach and have flowers and play rock music” in a symbolic, but not legally recognized, ceremony.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price
From Huffington Post:
Over the years, Price co-sponsored a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He voted against a bill that banned employers from discriminating against gay people and a bill that fought anti-gay hate crimes. He called the Obama administration’s guidelines allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, “absurd.”
Price went out of his way to back Kelvin Cochran, an Atlanta fire chief who was terminated in January 2015 after employees received copies of his self-published book, which equated homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality. The city’s mayor claimed Cochran was fired for his “judgment and management.” But Price, along with five other Georgia lawmakers, signed onto a letter asking the mayor to reinstate him.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
Betsy DeVos really rivals Mike Pence in her and her family’s efforts to target LGBTQ Americans on everything from marriage equality to conversion therapy.
The DeVos family has a long history of supporting anti-gay causes — including donating hundreds of thousands to groups that push “conversion therapy” — raising questions about how, if at all, she would address discrimination against gay and transgender students.
DeVos and her husband have given hundreds of thousands to Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian group whose founder called the battle against LGBT rights a "second civil war," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has also pushed so-called “conversion therapy” — discredited practices aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation — according to the Human Rights Campaign.
According to PrideSource.com, Devos and her husband Dick Devos led the effort to put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the ballot in 2004 and contributed more than $200,000 to the campaign, which ultimately succeeded. Dick DeVos also contributed $100,000 in 2008 to pass Amendment 2 in Florida, an effort that banned same-sex marriage in the state.
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao
From PinkNews:
Secretary Chao served in George W Bush’s Cabinet as Labor Secretary, overseeing a Department of Labor which was opposed to LGBT anti-discrimination protections.
She’s also the wife of Mitch McConnell, who voted against repeal of the military’s anti-gay “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 2010 and twice co-sponsored legislation constitutionally banning same-sex marriage.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (who has Cabinet-level rank)
As head of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus presided over passage of the GOP’s most blatantly homophobic platform ever.
The platform also makes homophobia and the denial of basic civil rights to gays, lesbians and transgender people a centerpiece. It repudiates same-sex marriage, despite strong support for this constitutional right in the nation at large. The party invokes “natural marriage” and states’ rights for determining which bathrooms transgender people may use, and it defends merchants who would deny service to gay customers.
Optimists who show up every four years as members of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, had to admit this was “the most anti-L.G.B.T. platform in the party’s 162-year history.”