White House Responds To Taylor Swift's Equality Act Petition
- By
- Carlos Santoscoy
- | August 28, 2019
The White House has responded to Taylor Swift's petition calling for passage of the Equality Act.
Swift's video for “You Need to Calm Down” won the Video of the Year award at Monday's 2019 MTV Video Music Awards. The video shows Swift and several openly LGBT celebrities from Laverne Cox to RuPaul and Ellen DeGeneres living in a trailer park as homophobes protest their lives on the sidelines. The video ends with a message to support passage of the Equality Act, which seeks to add protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to existing civil rights laws.
During her acceptance speech, Swift called out the White House for failing to respond to a petition she circulated calling for passage of the bill.
“It now has half a million signatures, which is five times the amount that it would need to warrant a response from the White House,” Swift said as she motioned as if she was checking a watch on her wrist.
The White House reissued a statement it released in May.
“The Trump administration absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all; however, the House-passed bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights,” the statement reads.
President Donald Trump has signaled that he's opposed to the legislation.
(Related: LGBT groups respond to Trump's opposition to Equality Act: “We're disgusted.”)