“Mark Green is a danger to every LGBTQ soldier bravely serving our country,” said Chad Griffin, President of the Human Rights Campaign. “Mark Green has called for states to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and appallingly said that being transgender is a ‘disease.’ He has used his office in Tennessee to push ‘license to discriminate’ legislation and undermine the basic civil rights of LGBTQ people at every turn. It would be unconscionable to put this man in charge of our Army. We call on every U.S. Senator to stand up for LGBTQ service members and reject this nomination.”

“As a Marine discharged under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ I am appalled that Donald Trump would seek to put this man in charge of the U.S. Army,” said Stephen Peters, National Press Secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. “Under President Obama’s leadership, we finally ended policies that forced service members, their partners, and families to hide who they are and treated them as second class citizens. There are thousands upon thousands of us who fought this injustice so that we could serve openly today -- and who are now threatened by the appointment of a man who has spent his career working to undermine our rights.”

Green’s anti-LGBTQ record includes describing former President Obama’s guidance protecting transgender students an example of “tyrannical government,” saying that being transgender is a “disease”, encouraging the state of Tennessee to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and equating transgender people to rapists and pedophiles.

As a State Senator, he supported legislation giving businesses a license to discriminiate against LGBTQ people, sponsored several anti-transgender bills, and opposed state nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

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