The Supreme Court’s ruling in 2015 that laws barring same-sex marriage were unconstitutional continues to outrage the right. But in truth, the right opposes any effort to promote equality for LGBT people, as you can see in these quotes from 2017.
“I can tell you that discrimination is in the eye of the beholder.”
– State Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, defending efforts in the Texas Legislature to pass a deeply offensive and dangerous bill discriminating against transgender people in public restrooms
“I do not believe that a celebration of ‘gay pride’ has anything to do with the mission of the Federal Reserve under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress. This is a celebration of a behavior that is still a class six felony in Virginia. How can the American people trust the judgment of the Federal Reserve as an institution when its spokesperson celebrates an attack on public morals?”
– Virginia Republican legislator Robert G. Marshall, criticizing the display of an LGBT pride flag at the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank. Marshall, one of the most anti-LGBT members of the Virginia Legislature, lost his bid for re-election to a transgender woman, Danica Roem, in November.
“Of course, I would enforce all the laws of the land. Of course, I think all Americans should be protected by the law. What I have said before is I don’t think anyone should get ‘extra rights.’”
– Ben Carson, after his nomination by President Trump to be the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, suggesting that treating LGBT people equally means extending “extra rights” to them
“I mean, it’s disgusting. I’ve learned words I didn’t know. I mean, other than…my assistants here, have you ever heard the word ‘throuple’? ‘Throuple’ so that’s three people coming together of different sexes, maybe mixed sexes. Them coming together. There are people who marry themselves. Somebody wanted to marry a tree. People marrying their pets. It’s just like — you know, you read the New Testament and you read about all the things and you think, ‘Oh, that’s not going on in our community.’ Oh yes it is. We’re back to that time where debauchery rules.”
– Jeff Mateer, first assistant attorney general of Texas, speaking in a 2015 speech that was unearthed after President Trump nominated him this year to serve as a federal judge in Texas. Mateer also defended “conversion therapy” for gay people and said transgender children are part of “Satan’s plan.” In mid-December Senate approval of Mateer’s nomination as a federal judge appeared to be dying.
“It was an anointed cake, and they made the cake and gave the cake as a gift. I know this is strange.”
– Dallas evangelist Lance Wallnau, telling a mother seeking deliverance for her gay son a complicated story about how converted prostitutes “saved” a gay man from homosexuality by baking him an “anointed” cake.
“When the conversation turned to gay rights, Trump motioned toward Pence and joked, ‘Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!'”
– President Trump, in perhaps a rare moment of truth-telling, talking about one of the most anti-LGBT people of all in his administration– Vice President Pence
