Washington, DC, July 22, 2016 — The National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund is issuing the following statement regarding GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
“Donald Trump’s speech shows that he doesn’t get it about the LGBTQ community. To be sure he admitted that we exist by mentioning us; this will not be a revelation to the American public. But he then went on to demonize undocumented immigrants, over a quarter of a million of whom are LGBTQ people; he gave our broken policing system a free pass on their apparent assault against Black people; doesn’t he realize that there are Black people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer? And he devalued one of the world’s great faiths in his outrageous attack on Muslims; doesn’t he know that there are LGBTQ Muslims and LGBTQ people of all faiths? He doesn’t get the fact that we are everywhere, we belong to every group, we all deserve respect and we all deserve policies that advance freedom, justice and equality. You can’t mention us and demonize us at the same time,” said Russell Roybal, Deputy Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund.
“Trump’s LGBTQ mention does nothing whatsoever to counter or diminish the vehemently anti-LGBTQ views of his running mate Mike Pence and the recently ratified GOP platform which has been described as the most anti-LGBTQ in history. The platform endorses so-called conversion therapy, calls for the banning same sex marriage, rejects LGBTQ families and bans transgender and gender non-conforming people from using restrooms that match their gender identity.”
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