by HRC Staff •
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, today released the following statement in response to media reports that Donald Trump will require immigrants to pass an “ideological test” that would include interviews about their feelings about LGBTQ equality.
“What’s craziest about this ignorant, incomprehensible plan is that Donald Trump and Mike Pence would fail their own test,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Just last week, Donald Trump courted votes in Orlando from some of the nation’s most notorious anti-LGBTQ activists, including people who have worked to export anti-LGBTQ hate abroad. Trump and Pence have vowed to to roll back nationwide marriage equality, supported vile laws like North Carolina’s HB2 and pledged to appoint anti-LGBTQ Supreme Court justices. Pence is best known by most Americans for the hateful denial-of-service law he peddled in Indiana last year, and even sought to divert funding from HIV programs to promote the abusive practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy.’”
Last week, on the two-month anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting that took the lives of 49 LGBTQ people and allies, Trump courted anti-LGBTQ activists just 10 miles from the site of the tragedy in Orlando. Among the organizations attending was Liberty Counsel, which supports and defends archaic laws criminalizing homosexuality with harsh punishments around the world, and has condemned President Obama and the U.S. government for speaking out against such laws, saying, “America should not be trying to make that country act in an immoral way.”
Trump has also doubled down on his anti-LGBTQ agenda by putting Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on the ticket. Pence became a national disgrace in 2015, for his “license to discriminate” bill that could have allowed businesses to deny service to LGBTQ people -- and for subsequently defending the bill after an outcry from the business community and a majority of Hoosier voters. In a now notorious interview with ABC last year, Pence refused to answer eight separate times when asked whether businesses should be able to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
In recent weeks, Trump has also campaigned alongside Tony Perkins -- leader of the Family Research Council, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Here’s a snapshot of how Donald Trump and Mike Pence align in their pursuit of undermining LGBTQ equality:
On Marriage Equality
On Non-Discrimination Protections
On Transgender Equality
The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer equality. 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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