Around the country, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer (LGBTQ) activists have targeted President Trump at protests for his supposedly anti-gay stances and comments, despite absolutely no evidence of such positions and even photographic evidence to the contrary, as when Trump held up a rainbow flag at one of his rallies in Colorado last year.
It is true that, like his former presidential competitor Hillary Clinton, Trump once opposed gay marriage, but like Clinton, he reversed his position and since that time has repeatedly affirmed that gay marriage is enshrined in the law.
Today, the Republican Party boasts a number of highly visible gay voices, including outspoken conservative venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who was an integral part of Trump’s transition team and who some have whispered may run for the governorship of California in the near future.
As Thiel said during his speech at last year’s Republican National Convention, “I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American… When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won. Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?”
But all this hasn’t stopped progressives and some LGBTQ supporters from claiming that not only does the Trump administration care about bathrooms (despite Trump saying that transgender Caitlyn Jenner was free to use any restroom at Trump Tower), but Trump is a homophobe who intends to persecute gays, lock them up in internment camps and strip them of their rights as U.S. citizens.
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth — but try telling that to protesters who organized a recent demonstration outside the new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
In what was supposed to be a major protest against the new presidential administration, crowds of LGBTQ men and women were told to gather outside the hotel and show support for their community the way that many ladies did during the Women’s March on the day following Trump’s inauguration roughly two weeks previously.
The gargantuan Women’s March crowd was widely estimated to be between half a million and a million people. But when the day of this LGBTQ protest arrived, only roughly two dozen people showed up to hold signs and make noise outside the hotel, embarrassingly outnumbered by reporters and photographers sent by media organizations to cover the story and interview them.
A Huffington Post article written before the demonstration titled “LGBTQ Activists Organizing Massive Dance Protest at Trump Hotel” gushed, “LGBTQ activists are planning to come together in a display of solidarity and resistance against the actions of President Donald Trump’s administration in one of the queerest ways possible: a MASSIVE dance party… According to WERK for Peace founding organizer Firas Nasr, this massive dance celebration is focused on solidarity, intersectionality and resistance among marginalized people.”
But as that last sentence proves, there was no specific attack on the Trump administration’s actions because the Trump administration hadn’t taken any action related to LGBTQ people. In fact, the doublespeak of WERK for Peace’s Nasr confirmed this. “The executive orders that Donald Trump has passed in the mere week and half of being in office have further marginalized nearly all disenfranchised groups in the US,” Nasr was quoted as saying, without bothering to identify any of the so-called “disenfranchised groups.”
“We believe that any attempt to marginalize or attack any one community is a direct attack on all of the diverse communities in the U.S. In response, we choose to use love and connection to uplift our communities, celebrate our intersectionality and differences and come together as one unified coalition. We want to send the message that we will not allow discrimination, bigotry or hate against any community in our country to break us apart. We celebrate together,” said Nasr.
It’s not known if the “intersectionality” Nasr was referring to had to do with being able to gather at the right intersection on a specific date, or if there was something larger meant by it. But certainly, a “coalition” of two dozen people gathered outside a hotel that hosts hundreds of guests is something a little less than formidable in Washington, even if the Huffington Post ends up attempting to use a video clip of six people dancing to mean that 600 people or 6,000 were dancing with them. (Perhaps the wonder of computer-generated imagery could be used to fill in the missing people?)
A closer look at Werk for Peace’s website shows that it’s a “partner” of the George Soros-sponsored organizations Code Pink and Gays Against Guns. Its website — which has a very “astroturf” (which refers to organizations that project a grassroots look-and-feel but are actually sponsored by big-money organizations) look — says nebulously that the group is “a queer-based grassroots movement using all forms of dance to promote peace.”
Furthermore, it goes on to state that “on June 12, dance was taken away from us by hate.” The date refers to the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida when 49 people from the LGBTQ community were murdered by Muslim killer Omar Mateen.
It should be noted that President Trump’s actions and executive orders will make it harder for individuals such as Mateen to commit such horrible atrocities in the future. In fact, Trump himself spoke out immediately in the wake of the Orlando tragedy, tweeting, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism. I don’t want congrats; I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”
Later, Trump declared at an appearance in New Hampshire, “I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people and Jewish people are targets of persecution and intimidation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence. This is not just a national security issue; it’s a quality-of-life issue. We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country — many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer.”
Whether Werk for Peace’s Nasr was aware of these statements or Trump’s stance on the Pulse nightclub shooting is unknown, but it’s clear from the evidence that this protest was poorly thought-out and poorly attended, to say the least.
~ Conservative Zone
