28 February 2017

The Inner Circle

The Daily Beast published a must-read article on Saturday with the title "Inside the Trump White House’s Fight Over LGBT Rights" (link here).

The findings in the piece are worrisome. The article notes, for instance, that the power of pro-LGBT Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner "has been dramatically exaggerated."

In contrast, the rabidly homophobic Attorney General Jeffrey Sessions wields much more power on these issues as do LGBT-hating organizations like the Family Research Council, the Liberty Counsel, and the American Family Association.

These anti-LGBT factions have much more power than their opponents and can more successfully bring Trump around to their position. The bottom line is, as the article states, "in the absence of stronger personal convictions on LGBT issues, [Donald] Trump may feel bound to pay back social conservatives for his electoral victory."

In short, LGBT Americans will be thrown under the proverbial bus.

As for LGBT rights in the next four years, the article concludes by saying it's difficult to know what will happen: "when it’s not even clear who’s driving, it’s hard to say where the car is going."

One thing is for certain: LGBT rights will be weakened considerably when Trump signs the disgraceful First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which he has promised many times to do. This will legalize many forms of blatant anti-LGBT discrimination and badly hurt every single LGBT American.

We will officially become second-class citizens, separate but not equal, and much worse off that we were under any previous Republican administration in the last half century.

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