Dems hit Trump on National Coming Out Day

Democrats are slamming President Trump on National Coming Out day, with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) calling the Trump administration “openly hostile to LGBTQ people.”

“Unfortunately, this year’s celebration is clouded by a presidency that is openly hostile to LGBTQ people. Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and their administration began attacking the LGBTQ community on their first day in office,” said DNC Chairman Tom Perez and DNC LGBT Caucus Chair Earl Fowlkes in a statement. 

“They retracted the Department of Education’s guidance on transgender students, abandoned America’s global leadership role on LGBTQ rights, proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS testing and care, and just last week reinterpreted the law to give businesses a license to discriminate.”

{mosads}House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a separate statement that the administration is engaged in a “mean-spirited and malicious campaign against LGBT Americans.”

“The White House’s ‘License to Discriminate’ guidelines are the latest assault on the rights of the LGBT community and open the floodgates to cruel, immoral discrimination against vulnerable Americans,” the California Democrat added, referring to a memo issued by the Justice Department establishing federal guidelines on religious liberty. 

Trump signed a controversial but largely symbolic executive order in May calling to “vigorously promote religious liberty” and preventing the IRS from punishing and taking “adverse action” against nonprofit religious groups who engage in political speech but do not make official political endorsements. It offers exemptions for religious groups from participating in activities that they say violate their religious convictions.

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading civil rights group, said the guidelines allow for a “sweeping license to discriminate” against vulnerable groups for giving “legal cover” to those who violate discrimination laws. 

A 20-page memo issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in October reinforces religious liberty as a fundamental human right, which “includes the right to act or abstain from action in accordance with one’s religious beliefs.”