In the wake of the biggest speech thus far of his political career, Donald Trump seemed to be getting some accolades for his “embrace” of the LGBTQ (yeah, Donnie Trump actually dropped the Q on everyone at the Q) community.
You had guys like Geraldo Rivera calling the shout out ‘historic’ given the setting of the Republican National Convention. A place you’d think would be the last to have an “embrace” of any kind when it came to LGBTQ citizens living in America today.
.@GeraldoRivera: "When [Trump] said that about the LGBTQ community…I thought that was historic. That was really such a major breakthrough"
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 22, 2016
Add to the fact that Trump had openly gay Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel speak at the convention you come out having to surely acknowledge that yes, the Donald Trump’s RNC was obviously different when it came to acknowledging the LGBTQ community without having any mention of suspending their rights to get married.
Sure Donald Trump, despite his seemingly historic amount of divisiveness within his own campaign hasn’t been the most divisive Republican candidate this political season when it came to the LGBTQ community. Especially when you had bible cowards running like Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum who I’m sure would rather inseminate a cow than allow gay people to get married.
However let’s not let the Trump campaign pull the wool over our eyes when it comes to their perceived “embrace” of the LGBTQ community.
Aside from many pointing out Donald Trump’s struggle’s with pronouncing the acronym L-G-B-T-Q…
He said "LGBTQ" like he was taking an eye test.
— Neal Brennan (@nealbrennan) July 22, 2016
lets examine that single statement that’s garnered him plenty of kudos from the Republican talking heads who all of a sudden think they’re some kind of champions of LGBTQ rights.
"I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the
violence…of a hateful foreign ideology." pic.twitter.com/DKlHZufaES— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 22, 2016
So Mr. Trump is going to do ‘everything’ in his ‘power’ to protect ‘LGBTQ citizens from the violence of hateful foreign ideology’.
Well… I guess you’d hope, as president of the United States the least he could do is protect all American citizens from the dangers of foreign OR domestic terrorism, despite that person’s race, creed, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
Essentially Trump has impressed with a blanket statement. Okay… we’ll move on though.
What about the ‘hateful foreign ideology’ rhetoric to finish out the quote? Yes, hateful foreign ideology is bad, I don’t think anyone is debating that. It’s bad in the same sense that hateful domestic ideology is bad too. Quite frankly I’m surprised he just didn’t say ‘Islamic terrorism’ and continue to push that narrative since we all know that’s what he was thinking and getting at with that statement.
But if Donald Trump actually wanted to display a genuine embrace of the LGBTQ community he wouldn’t have made it seem like it’s only ‘hateful foreign ideology’ out to get them. If he was really genuine or had the balls he would stand up to the vast majority of his own party who still employ a 1950’s mentality when it comes to the equal rights of every citizen in this country.
Hell, look no further than Donald Trump’s VP pick in Mike Pence who signed into law the ‘Religious Freedom Act’ in Indiana. Or that fact that Donald Trump has consistently reassured his voting base that he would appoint conservative judges to the supreme court, a group who haven’t exactly been attending any Pride parades lately.
Again, don’t be fooled by this empty and misleading rhetoric of Donald Trump being a candidate that’s going to look out and champion for LGBTQ rights. Mr. Trump is going to look out for LGBTQ rights like ISIS is going to look out for homeless kids in Israel. It’s just not going to happen.
