Politics
HRC warns of the danger of a second Trump term
Kelley Robinson says we must ‘take him at his word’
“We have to take him at his word,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson told the Washington Blade Wednesday morning during a discussion about how LGBTQ Americans would be impacted if former President Donald Trump is reelected next year.
“They’re saying exactly what his plans are, out loud: Not only is he talking about a federal ban on gender affirming care, he’s talking about federal ‘don’t say gay or trans’ bills; he’s reigniting his work to stack the courts and federal agencies with anti-LGBTQ+ extremists,” she said. “I think we have to listen carefully to what he says.”
Robinson said this includes Trump’s remarks to Sean Hannity during an Iowa town hall last week in which he denied, to the Fox News host, the charge that he would return to the White House as a dictator, “except for day one.”
Trump is testing the waters to gauge Americans’ appetite for extremism, Robinson said. “This is dangerous, I think, when it comes to our issues — but also when it comes to the broader experiment of democracy,” she said, adding, “That is not a joking matter any way, shape or form to have someone in office that is willing to abuse their power for their own personal gain.”
If reelected, he would pose a fundamental threat to the safety and security of LGBTQ people, Robinson said, as evidenced, for example, by his actions during his first term in office and the officials with whom he would surround himself in a second term.
“This is the guy that supported an insurrection on the United States Capitol and is now facing 91 indictments; this is the guy that in Charlottesville, when there was a racist riot taking place, said that there were good people on both sides; this is the guy that has unabashedly supported the kind of violence — and actually, to be honest with you, unleashed so much of it on our community, due to his violent rhetoric and the rhetoric of his supporters and the people around him,” she said.
“He has unearthed an openness around bias, hate, and discrimination that we haven’t seen in a generation; he’s unearthed folks that are willing to go to Target with an AR-15 because they disagree with a T-shirt; he’s unearthed folks that are willing to call into places and threaten the lives of the people there; he’s unearthed folks who are showing up with guns to drag shows and to libraries because of some brunch and some books,” she said.
Robinson continued, “Because the other thing you’ve got to be clear about is, sure, Donald Trump is a scary, scary person to think of having as president of the United States once again, and the people that he surrounds himself with are equally terrifying.” Names like “Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller; folks that have a history of supporting the the very types of violence that you’re talking about are front of the line.”
“I can’t underscore how dangerous the administration he is contemplating could be,” she said.
Robinson also outlined some of the threats posed by Trump’s potential reelection to the work of government and to the federal judiciary.
Much of this would be perhaps an extension of his efforts during the first term to gut “these federal agencies then put in place extremists at the helm of them to either do nothing and dismantle their ability to be effective in supporting the people of this nation, or to actually do active harm,” she said.
Meanwhile, “he was able to stack the Supreme Court with basically anti-democracy justices that are starting to carry out their will,” Robinson said. “We saw the Dobbs decision come out of the court that he created, [which] overturned Roe v. Wade. We saw the 303 Creative decision that created a legal loophole for discrimination against LGBTQ+ community. We saw them come after affirmative action and student debt relief. They are showing us what they are planning to do.”
Robinson added, “You don’t have to look much further than the words of these very justices,” noting conservative Justice Clarence Thomas’s stated interest in revisiting the court’s protections for same-sex marriage and revocation of sodomy laws. “This is very serious,” she said.
The importance of strengthening democracy
Robinson highlighted multiple ways in which the collective power of the pro-equality majority can — and must — be leveraged in the face of these challenges, and repeatedly stressed the underlying need to strengthen American democracy moving forward.
She pointed to gerrymandered district maps that have awarded disproportionate power to far-right extremists in state legislatures, who are responsible for passing legislation targeting vulnerable communities like trans youth.
“The landscape ahead is rough, because we’ve got to do work to course-correct what’s happening at the state level,” Robinson said, while also doing “work to course-correct what’s happening in the federal government by ensuring that we keep a pro-equality majority.”
“We’ve also got to be thinking about the judiciary branch in a meaningful way,” she added.
Robinson stressed that “The people are on our side. Fundamentally, there are more folks that support human rights, common progressive values than there are that do not.”
“Every day, 2,200 LGBTQ+ Americans are turning 18,” Robinson said. “We’re living in a country where we are going to be a huge voting bloc, a huge constituency, politically — and at the same time, where the practices of a representative democracy might be impaired to the point where our numbers no longer influence our political power,” so, “We have to fix that to actually ensure that this is a representative democracy.”
In some ways, it seems anti-LGBTQ conservative Christian organizations are more powerful than ever. The Alliance Defending Freedom, for example, has close ties with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and backed cases like Dobbs and 303 Creative that delivered major victories for the religious right.
Robinson argued that while these groups “still hold an immense amount of institutional power,” which, for sure, presents major challenges, “when you look at our collective power, they are, in fact, on the decline.”
For example, she said, “the number and proportion of evangelical voters is actually declining, year over year” while “our collective power is increasing, which I think is what’s creating this very crisis that we’re in — you’re up against folks who have held power in this country for the last 400 years.”
Congress
Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office
Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections
In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.
The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.
Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).
Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.
“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”
Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.
“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”
“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”
Politics
George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case
Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’
Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.
His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.
Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.
The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.
Congress
Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation
California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.
The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.
“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.
The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”
“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.
“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.
Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.
Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.
“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”
Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.
“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”
The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.
“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.
The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.
“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”
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