For Third Year, Trump Doesn't Recognize LGBT Pride
- By
- Carlos Santoscoy
- | June 07, 2020
For the third year in a row, President Donald Trump has failed to officially recognize June as LGBT Pride Month.
Last year, Trump became the first Republican president in history to recognize LGBT Pride Month. But the recognition came in the form of a tweet, not an official proclamation.
According to NBC News, Trump issued presidential actions proclaiming June as National Homeownership Month, Great Outdoors Month, and Caribbean-American Heritage Month. On June 1, as racial tensions increased across the nation over the death of George Floyd, the White House recognized June 1 as Global Coptic Day.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, criticized Trump for not officially recognizing Pride.
“In a global pandemic and national crisis highlighting ongoing racial violence and police brutality across the country – violence that particularly targets Black lives – Trump and his administration have stoked division, hate and anger with continued attacks on LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants and other vulnerable communities,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement.
For eight years, former President Barack Obama issued a Pride proclamation and hosted a reception at the White House every June.
Trump, who said during the 2016 election that he would be a better “friend” to the LGBT community than his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, has repeatedly undermined the rights of LGBT people, including prohibiting transgender individuals from serving openly in the military and asserting in legal briefs that LGBT people are not covered under existing civil rights laws. Trump has also signaled his opposition to the Equality Act, a federal bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Last month, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow religiously-affiliated adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBT families.
(Related: In Supreme Court filing, Trump admin says adoption agencies can reject LGBT families.)