In a recent interview, President Joe
Biden came out against a wave of legislation attacking the LGBTQ
community.
In a The Daily Show interview
with out actor-comedian Kal Penn, Biden called such bills “close to
sinful.”
“What's going on in Florida is, as my
mother would say, close to sinful. It is just terrible what they are
doing,” Biden said.
“It’s not like
a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to
become a man or I want to become a woman, or I want to change.' What
are they thinking about here? They’re human beings. They love, they
have feelings, they have inclinations that are… it just to me, is,
I don’t know, it’s cruel.”
In recent years,
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has signed numerous
bills attacking the transgender community. He is widely expected to
announce a 2024 run for the White House.
“The way we do
it is we make sure we pass legislation like we did with same-sex
marriage. You mess with that you’re breaking the law and you’re
going to be held accountable,” Biden said.
Biden's record on
marriage equality has evolved from voting in the Senate for the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibited the federal
government from recognizing the legal marriages of gay and lesbian
couples, to signing into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which
forces states to recognize the legal marriages of same-sex couples.
According to the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), state lawmakers filed 426
anti-LGBTQ bills this legislative session.