Flickr / Elvert Barnes
When asked about his anti-LGBTQ policies on Tuesday, President Trump deflected and instead boasted about his endorsement from the Log Cabin Republicans.
Trump claimed that he is doing “very well with that community”:
The group that he is referring to, The Log Cabin Republicans, is a national organization for Republicans who are part of the LGBTQ community.
Trump did in fact receive an endorsement from the group, but that angered some of its board members such as Jennifer Horn who turned in her resignation shortly after the endorsement was announced.
Horn says, “Donald Trump is not an advocate for equality.”
“This President has not earned the support of an esteemed organization that has spent 40 years fighting for equality.”
Jennifer Horn, former member of the Log Cabin Republicans, calls the organization’s endorsement of President Trump’s 2020 re-election bid “a big mistake.” pic.twitter.com/PZIpEECles
— CNN (@CNN) August 21, 2019
There’s a lot of truth in Horn’s words. The Trump administration has been slowly dismantling the rights of the LGBTQ community since they set up camp in the White House.
Most notably:
- May 2017: The HHS Department rolled back regulations in the Affordable Care Act that protected transgender people
- July 2017: Trump announced via Twitter that the military would no longer “accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve”
- October 2017: The Justice Department gave employers a “license to discriminate” if based on religious reasons
- January 2018: HHS opened the “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” that allowed health care providers to deny care to LGBTQ persons for moral or religious reasons
- January 2019: The HHS allowed religiously-affiliated South Carolina adoption agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ caregivers
- August 2019: The Justice Department filed a brief arguing that it is okay to fire workers for being transgender
Trump is using the Log Cabin endorsement as a shield he can hide behind when asked about his administration’s anti-LGBTQ record, and Horn isn’t willing to provide the cover:
“There is no world where I can sit down at the dining room table and explain to my children that I just endorsed Donald Trump for president. It is contrary to everything that I have ever taught them about what it means to be a good, decent, principled member of society.”
She isn’t the only one leaving the Log Cabin organization behind over the Trump endorsement. Casey Pick, a former leader, sought to distance herself from the group saying, “Don’t call me a Log Cabin Republican.”
The former head of the Washington D.C. chapter, Robert Turner, withdrew his own membership with sadness. Turner says that endorsing Trump was “a step too far.”
In 2016, the group voted against a Trump endorsement.
