Anti gay politicians
How new House Speaker Mike Johnson spent years fighting against gay rights
In the wake of an unprecedented three-week void without a House speaker, Republicans on Wednesday elected Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson. While he is recognized within some Washington circles for his deeply conservative stances, Johnson, who was most recently the House GOP conference's vice chair, remains relatively obscure beyond the Capitol.
But prior to joining Congress in 2017, he spent years building his career and profile by denouncing gay people and fighting against gay rights, which he staunchly opposes, citing his Christian faith and views on liberty.
An ABC News examination of common records, news reports and documents shows the extent to which Johnson committed earlier phases of his career to limiting same-sex attracted rights, including same-sex marriage and health care access, and through anti-gay movement on college campuses.
In comments from over fifteen years ago, long before he became a lawmaker and while acting as an attorney and spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian representation group, Johnson described homosexuals as "sinful" and "destructive" and argued s
Following Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 presidential election, many people may be looking to his campaign speeches to comprehend his position on major issues such as LGBTQ rights.
The Republican Party’s electoral promises in this area include cutting existing federal funding for gender-affirming look after and restricting transgender students’ participation in sports.
Yet as a legal scholar who has written extensively on the history of LGBTQ rights, I have seen that the clearest indication of how a politician will act once in office is not what they promise on the campaign trail. Instead, it is what they own done in the past.
Let’s examine the records of Trump and the vice president-elect, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
Trump restricted some LGBTQ rights
Trump and Vance are both relatively new to politics, so their records on LGBTQ rights issues are slim. That said, they own both done enough to qualify them as opponents of LGBTQ rights.
Trump enacted two policies restricting LGBTQ rights early in his one term in office. The first was his 2017 executive command Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which reinforced that federal law must respect conscience-base
Colorado politicians have promoted anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policies — from local school boards to Congress — that escalate force, experts and advocates say
As condolences from across the nation flowed in for victims of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, some were sternly rejected by members of the lgbtq+ community.
Both Rep. Lauren Boebert and former gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl posted on Twitter that they would pray for everyone affected by Sunday’s mass shooting. LGBTQ people and allies promptly called out the two Republicans for transphobic and homophobic remarks they made while in office and on the campaign trail.
While it is still not obvious what motivated the alleged shooter, the attack comes during a tense period among LGBTQ communities. The basic accuracy of transgender persona was heavily debated during the 2022 election, where transphobic campaign ads were sent to mailboxes and broadcast on television and radio stations.
“I would utter I'm definitely nervous,” Burlie Gooch, who identifies as pansexual, said at the memorial outside Club Q. “I call to be diligent and watch my surroundings, but it's not gonna halt me from wanting to live.”
What Anti-LGBT Politics in the U.S. Means for Democracy at Home and Abroad
On March 28, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that effectively bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender persona in Florida’s schools. The so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill creates new restrictions on classroom speech around LGBT people and queer families and empowers parents to sue a institution if the policy is violated, chilling any discuss of LGBT themes lest schools or teachers confront potentially costly litigation.
This bill is the latest in a record-setting year of legislation targeting LGBT people: in 2022 alone, more than 200 anti-LGBT bills have been introduced in state legislatures across a range of issues, with a majority targeting transgender individuals. In addition to efforts to regulate school curricula, lawmakers have sought to limit trans students’ participation in school athletics, restrict access to bathrooms that align with their gender identity, and contradict life-saving gender-affirming medical care. Despite legal advances over the past decade and growing public support for LGBT rights—a recent PRRI poll found that 79 percent of Americans favor laws that preserve LGBT people from discr
NEW REPORT: Anti-LGBTQ+ Grooming Narrative Surged More Than 400% on Social Media Following Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay or Trans’ Law, As Social Platforms Enabled Extremist Politicians and their Allies to Peddle Inflamatory, Discriminatory Rhetoric
by Henry Berg-Brousseau •
As Extremist Politicians Ramp Up Harmful Anti-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric Ahead of 2022 Elections, New Describe from Human Rights Campaign and Center for Countering Digital Hate Warns of Growing Influence Extremists are Wielding Online — as Social Media Platforms Facilitate and Profit From Anti-LGBTQ+ ‘Grooming’ Content
WASHINGTON — In the wake of the passage of Florida’s discriminatory “Don’t Declare Gay or Trans” bill, extremist politicians and their allies engineered an unprecedented and dangerous anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation campaign that saw discriminatory and inflamatory “grooming” content surge by over 400% across social media platforms, according to a novel report released today by the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Countering Digital Loathing. The report — Digital Hate: Social Media’s Role in Amplifying Dangerous Lies About LGBTQ+ People — reveals that the average number of tweets per day using slurs such