We hate to say, “we told you so…”
Proud Parenting received some negative feedback last fall, when we warned our followers about the dangers of a possible Trump presidency. But well into his first year in the White House, LGBT voters who hoped for the best have been disappointed.
via The Daily Beast
The Trump administration’s record on LGBT issues has been defined by retrenchment. Many of the advances made under the Obama administration have disappeared, replaced by policies and directives that could have been written by an anachronistic social conservative instead of the cosmopolitan New York businessman occupying the Oval Office.
“Trump’s supporters like to say, It’s not what he says, it’s what he does that matters. That’s definitely the case when it comes to issues affecting LGBT Americans,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, who started the now-defunct conservative gay rights group GOProud. “I never thought that Donald Trump was an anti-gay homophobe. I certainly didn’t think that when I met him back in 2011. But we’ve all learned a lot about who he really is since then. With his political pandering and posturing to endear himself to the intolerant wing of the GOP over the last few years, it doesn’t surprise me that this administration will go down as the most anti-LGBT in history.”
During the 2016 Republican National Convention, Trump vowed that he “would do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of the hateful, foreign ideology [of Islamist terror].” When the conservative crowd applauded, he paused and added, “I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said, thank you.”
“He will be the most gay-friendly Republican nominee for president ever,” Gregory T. Angelo, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, insisted to The New York Times in April 2016.
With few, if any, LGBT champions inside the Oval Office, the administration’s culture warriors have largely been given free rein. Those who warned that Trump’s pro-gay rights rhetoric was just empty bluster are more heartsick than content when they say, “I told you so.”
