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Biden voted to cut off federal funds to any school that teaches acceptance of homosexuality.”
In 1994, Biden
did vote for a measure that cut funds if a school promoted homosexuality “as a positive life style alternative.” It had been proposed by two Republican senators, Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire and Jesse Helms of North Carolina. But Biden also voted for an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), that blunted the impact of the Smith-Helms measure by denying federal funds to schools that promoted any sexual activity, homosexual or heterosexual.
“Donald Trump is the first president in American history to be pro-gay marriage from his first day in office.”
This is a silly assertion. Trump was also the first president elected after the Supreme Court in 2015 made same-sex marriage legal across the country. It again ignores Biden’s significant role in the marriage-equality debate.
“President Trump fully supported our fight to crush the homophobic and barbaric Islamic terrorist organization Hezbollah and the Iranian regime that supports them. While President Trump was denying the homophobic regime money, the Obama-Biden team was giving them billions of dollars.”
Here Grenell suggests policy toward Iran is based on Tehran’s anti-homosexual policies when nothing could be further from the truth; it’s mostly about Iran’s nuclear program. Trump has sought to dismantle the nuclear accord reached by Obama but has made no progress in reaching a new agreement. We have
explained many times what Iran received under the accord was Iranian money frozen in overseas accounts; Obama did not “give” its leaders billions of dollars because it was always Iran’s money.
“President Trump began a historic campaign to decriminalize homosexuality around the globe at the United Nations, where he publicly challenged the 69 countries who make being gay a crime to change their laws. … Gay people don’t have to vote Democrat because Donald Trump is the most pro-gay president in American history.”
After all the disingenuous attacks on Biden, the only policy Grenell cites to back his claim that Trump is the most pro-gay president is a campaign at the U.N. to urge other countries to stop making homosexuality a crime. He also asks, “Why did Joe Biden fail to make this issue a priority in his more than 40 years in Washington?”
Apparently, it wasn’t much of a priority for Trump. Grenell personally announced the policy in 2019, but Trump initially
told reporters he didn’t know much about it. When he was asked why he was undertaking the policy, Trump replied: “I don’t know, uh, which report you’re talking about. We have many reports.” Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman described the policy as “long-standing,” “bipartisan” and “really is not a big policy departure.”
Indeed, Obama in 2011 issued
a presidential memorandum making support for gay rights a foreign policy priority. “The struggle to end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons is a global challenge, and one that is central to the United States commitment to promoting human rights,” Obama said. While Trump eventually brought up the push to stop criminalizing homosexuality in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Obama had already made similar remarks in the same forum.
Obama also appointed a special envoy for LGBT and intersex rights in the State Department in 2015. Trump has let the position go unfilled since 2017.
Meanwhile, there are many Trump administration policies that are regarded as anti-gay. Here’s a sampling:
- Trump signed a law that undercut Obama’s anti-discriminatory protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer contractors.
- The Trump Justice Department argued a major federal civil rights law does not protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation, again taking a stand against a decision reached under Obama.
- The Trump administration took a number of steps undercutting rights for transgender Americans, including a ban on transgender troops, removal of anti-discriminatory protections and adopting a regulation that defines gender as a person’s biological sex.
- The Trump State Department is even appealing a federal judge’s decision that it must recognize the U.S. citizenship of a young girl born via surrogate to a gay couple. Though the couple is legally married, the State Department claims because the daughter was born in Canada to a surrogate, she is “born out of wedlock” and not entitled to birthright citizenship.
With that record under Trump, it’s little wonder Biden has won the support of major gay rights groups, such as the
Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
“Plain and simple, Donald Trump has attacked LGBTQ people because of who we are and whom we love,” Lucas Acosta, HRC national press secretary, said in a statement to The Fact Checker. “His administration has sought to allow discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in health care, in employment and foster care, in schools, and even in housing. It’s unconscionable, insidious, and offensive for anyone to call this administration ‘pro-LGBTQ’ when the president, vice president, and those who work for them, have endeavored to systematically roll back our rights and deny us our dignity. The 11 million LGBTQ voters and 57 million voters who prioritize equality when casting their vote are not going to fall for the Trump campaign’s latest attempt to gas light the American public.”
The Advocate, an LGBT-interest magazine, said it gave Biden
an “enthusiastic” endorsement because “Biden is running on the most pro-LGBTQ+ platform of any major-party nominee in the history of the United States.” The endorsement discusses some of the votes cited by Grenell but says they must be viewed in context. “You can not have had a career in politics as long as Biden without evolving on a lot of issues along with broader society,” the Advocate wrote.
We sought a comment from a spokesman for the Log Cabin Republicans, which bills itself as “the nation’s original and largest organization representing LGBT conservatives and straight allies” but did not receive a response.
The Pinocchio Test
Grenell manages to both significantly mislead about Biden’s record and oversell Trump’s. Biden’s positions evolved over the years, but often he was ahead of the general public or other politicians in recognizing gay rights or seeking to thwart discrimination against gay people. Grenell pretends comments from a half-century ago are relevant today.
As for Trump, the only items Grenell can cite in support of his supposedly pro-gay record concern Grenell’s own temporary appointment and a policy announced by Grenell that Trump apparently knew little about. (We’re still not sure why Iran policy gets mentioned as a pro-gay issue.) That’s pretty thin gruel on which to claim Trump is the most pro-gay president in history, especially when Trump has worked actively to undermine protections for the LGBT community that were enacted under Obama.
Trump is pro-Grenell, but that doesn’t mean his administration is pro-gay. Grenell earns Four Pinocchios.
Four Pinocchios
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