Anti-gay past presidents

Mike Pence is the Worst Vice President for LGBTQ People In Up-to-date History

Pence attempted to license discrimination against LGBTQ people by signing into law a religious exemption designed to create swiss cheese out of nondiscrimination laws.

This move cost the state:

$60 million in disoriented business from 12 conventions

$365k of taxpayer money spent on a PR stable to help dampen the backlash and attempt to restore the reputation of Indiana

...and the respect of millions

In 2007, Pence stoked far-right fear of LGBTQ non-discrimination protections by lying about ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act):

"Under ENDA, employees around the country who possess religious beliefs that are opposed to gay behavior would be forced, in effect, to lay down their rights and convictions at the door. For example, if an employee keeps a Bible in his or her cubicle, if an employee displays a Bible verse on their desk, that employee could be claimed by a homosexual colleague to be creating a hostile work environment because the homosexual employee objects to passages in the Bible relating to homosexuality."

Meanwhile, Pence blocked hate crimes prevention leg

A Brief Chronology of Presidential LGBTQIA+ Civil Rights Achievements

To celebrate Presidents' Day, we at Seattle Pride are honoring the words and actions of executive leaders who have celebrated us. It is hard to go back more than a few years and see anything but unfilled pursuits of ‘tolerance’ or outright silence when considering LGBTQIA+ Americans, but today we pay homage to the few presidents who have championed improved conditions for our LGBTQIA+ siblings.

Lyndon B. Johnson (sort of):

Decades after passage, Barack Obama would laud the 1964 Civil Rights Act as instrumental in opening the door for other many other anti-discrimination laws and judicial decisions, most recently Bostock v Clayton Co, GA, which codified employment anti-discrimination for gay and transgender Americans.

However, the administration itself was not passionate to this idea. In a 1965 letter to LGBTQIA+ forebear Frank Kameny, VP Humphrey insisted that the Civil Rights Execute was ‘not relevant to the problems of homosexuals’.

Hence, LBJ can best be described as an accidental LGBTQIA+ advocate. Thanks (sort of)!

Bill Clinton (not really, though)

Bill Clinton was a politically nuanced leader, allowing h

The Real List of Trump’s “Unprecedented Steps” for the LGBTQ Community

by HRC Staff •

Post submitted by Lucas Acosta (he/him), former Deputy Director of Communications, Politics

HRC lists Trump's persistent attacks against the LGBTQ community after the RNC claims he's taken "unprecedented steps" in back of the community.

HRC President Alphonso David: “The RNC is hallucinating and advancing misleading and disingenuous rhetoric. Yes, Trump has taken many ‘unprecedented’ steps, but those steps own been to undermine and eliminate rights protecting LGBTQ people, not empower us. Appointing a small handful of gay people out of thousands of nominations and making a very few -- and unfullfilled -- pledges can hardly qualify as accomplishments. Don’t gaslight us. The Trump-Pence administration is the most virulently anti-LGBTQ administration in decades -- the RNC cannot put lipstick on a pig.”

Here’s a list of attacks the Trump-Pence administration has levied against LGBTQ people:

For the packed list of Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ people, attend HRC.org/Trump.

Harvey Milk (1930 - 1978)

"I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, experience is not worth living. And you ... and you ... and you ... have got to give them hope." -Harvey Milk, "You Cannot Stay on Hope Alone" speech

When he won the election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, Harvey Milk made history as the first openly gay elected official in California, and one of the first in the United States. His camera store and campaign headquarters at 575 Castro Street (and his apartment above it) were centers of community activism for a wide range of human rights, environmental, labor, and neighborhood issues. During his tenure as supervisor, he helped pass a same-sex attracted rights ordinance for the city of San Francisco that prohibited anti-gay discrimination in housing and employment.

Harvey Milk has been honored twice under President Obama's administration. First, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. In 2014, he was honored by the United States Postal Service with a Forever Imprint in 2014.

Selected Library Resources:

Jason Edward Black and Charles

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