Since Donald Trump is man of majestic ignorance, until he reached the White House he didn't fully realize his supporters hate gays. He thought they merely hated Blacks, Hispanics & Muslims. Now that he's learned they hate gays, he hates them, too.
This is who they are; this is who he is. It won't change. Ever.
20
Somewhat ironic that Roy Cohn, Trump's lawyer and mentor was gay (or as Roger Stone put it, liked having sex with men).
9
If the government intend to identify gender by genitalia, it is forgetting hermaphrodites
Or when they are born will be treated like monsters and a gender will be chosen arbitrarily for them?
7
Are the narrow-minded people who devised this policy aware of those born with ambiguous genitalia? The number is thought to be at least 1 in every 2,000 births. Not everything in the real world is as described in the Bible.
5
Maybe he actually thinks that the LGBT community don't mind being oppressed as long as it's by good ole White westerners instead of those nasty brown skinned Muslims.
3
The "Log Cabin" is not Gay America!
For trans people, this is one area that even this right wing supreme court must look to science. How is sex to be determined and irrevocably defined at birth for those whose genitalia are indeterminate?
3
Guess what: America is lead by a fascist. Nothing more, nothing less. Gay people were even part of the Nazi movement in the beginning and later deported and murdered just the same (as all those other „entartet“ people). Why this drastic comparison? So many migrant and other minority voters in the States believe, when they only support Trump, he will bar them from withdrawing their rights and citizenship: Guess what! HE WILL NOT!
7
The interesting thing is that Trump's mentor Roy Cohn was gay! But his fake concern for Cohn was demonstrated by the fact that he gifted him a fake diamond and gold watch in a Bulgari box as thanks for his service!
8
Anyone other than a wealthy, racist white male who is still gullible enough to support this clown should study the Peanuts cartoons very carefully. Especially those featuring Lucy who repeatedly pulls away the football and sends our hero, Charlie Brown, to an ignominious landing on his keister. It is just a matter of time before you meet the same fate.
6
When I see Trump fans such as "Blacks for Trump" and "Gays for Trump," I see people as blindered as Jews for Hitler. They thought that his bank was worse than his bite in 1932-33, and stayed on for the Nuremberg Race Laws (patterned after U.S. "Jim Crow" laws), Kristallnacht, and, ultimately, "relocation to the east."
5
Frank says he’s still confident about the long run. I’m certainly not.
The policies and enmities of the Trump administration and this latest attack on the LGBTQ community bring to mind Reverend Martin Niemoller’s famous statement lamenting his (and his fellow German’s) inaction as the Nazis came for and imprisoned and/or eliminated successive groups of their “enemies”, including homosexuals. Unless the silent majority starts speaking out soon and with a strong, unwavering and unified voice against such blatant and heinous discrimination and hate — including by voting to give the Dems control Congress — there may come a day (likely much sooner than any of us appreciate) that Americans will be able to repeat Niemoller’s words in describing their own failure to stand up for protect their neighbours and fellow citizens.
4
A simple rule of thumb. You can't believe anything Trump says.
12
it was obvious at the time that he was using Islamophobia as a way to appeal to LGBT folks, in a very sly and deceitful way. A clever trick by him or someone in the campaign.
2
This president is nasty, immoral, anti-civilization (you have to care about people to be civilized!), corrupt, angry, narcissistic, etc. How many derogatory words do we use to describe this man and his party. We have reason to be frightened. The man and so many who support him are against LGBT individuals and Muslims and Hispanics and Blacks and Women (yes, there are women who support Trump, apparently either they don't care or have need of women's health coverage or employment equality or ...) and the Press and all our international agreements and .... The list is almost endless and very frightening to consider how many are hated by this man, party and followers. It is unnerving. It would be discouraging, except I believe there are many more Americans who do not agree or promote such bigotry toward much of the world.
3
I told all of my gay male friends who viewed the Women’s March with desultory interest not to be so smug, that the Supreme Court ruling meant nothing with Trump and Pence in the White House. Time to get back in the fight, boys.
3
Sometimes he doesn't give himself a loophole of a pendant clause, as he does here in promising to protect skeptics in the LGBTQ communities from marauding Islamist invaders. Sometimes he doesn't care that the doesn't mean what he intends people to hear. You get it.
2
Oh, don't be silly! You can tell by the way he's holding the flag upside down that it was Opposite's Day when he said all that.
1
This gay man remembers laughing at that line in Trump's speech because it was simply so preposterous. The very idea that a man who would pick Mike Pence as his running mate would protect the LGBTQ community? Absurd!
I did wonder who applauded that night. It surely wasn't the Evangelicals. It surely wasn't the people who go to Trump's rallies. Perhaps Peter Thiel brought some friends with him?
Had Trump held a man's hand and kissed him on the lips that night, I wouldn't have believed he'd protect LGBTQ rights.
I doubt he even knew what all the letters stand for.
4
Trump counts votes and there are more evangelicals then gays and their supporters. Trump has no empathy and only cares about his own out sized ego and personal finances. Trump has a lot of rage and hate inside him and it spills out with venom causing our country to be divided with most of the world despising us. Encouraging violence vs his perceived enemies it would not be long before his brown shirt supporters start physically attacking those groups Trump attacks. Fascism can happen in America ,Trump is a fascist and having all levers of government under his control makes him the dictator he yearns to be. Trump knows great presidents have a war to rally support Trump does not hesitate to lie ,it might not be long before Bolton/Trump have an excuse to start a war with Iran and anti war demonstrators would be an excuse for martial law. Gays could be rounded up and placed in camps run by evangelicals to pray away the gay under Bishop Pence.
2
The current threat to LGBT rights (and people) isn't from a hateful "foreign" ideology. It's a 100% home-grown one.
3
Any LGBTI person who supports Trump and Trumpism at this point might as well just admit that they're white supremacists.
He's working to erase and/or take away our rights, so only hatred for non white people could make anyone who is LGBTI take his side.
3
He said "hateful *foreign* ideology." His policies are hateful domestic ideologies.
3
I wish that Trump's base was compelled to give extended attention to how exactly slimy salesman suckers consumers. It's the narcissistic personality order (only a disorder, when it is maladaptive).
The narcissist "loves" you when you make him the center of attention. And he loves other narcissists—or egoists—as admirable competitors (because if you fight "me," you validate "me").
But when the sale is over, the salesman doesn't need you anymore, so you're forgotten. And what he said to fluff up your usefulness is forgotten.
He even knows that he's suckering the consumer. It's immensely entertaining to entertain the consumer.
3
I do remember Mr. Trump's speech, Mr. Bruni.
You had to hear it not to believe it.
And I didn't. Still don't.
The wonder -- to me, however -- is that anyone, anywhere STILL believes anything this miserable liar says.
2
Mr. Bruni, I hope you and whatever sane Republicans are left in the GOP finally get it through your heads that the party you thought you were a part of disappeared a long time ago, I'd say when Gingrich declared war on Congress and the federal government, the seeds of which were sewn during Reagan's years. Give it up, they are a bunch of lying crackpots who care nothing about our cherished ideals of living in a liberal democracy anymore. The GOP is owned lock, stock and two smoking barrels by the Christianist multimillionaire/billionaire crazies that want a Republic of Gilead asap. It's time to let go and declare yourself an Independent like a lot of other Republicans have done over the past few decades.
Also, enough columns about the latest Trump outrage. He does it on purpose to distract and incite divisions, period. He's ultimately boring - predictable, repetitive, and void of original ideas, just like your beloved, mythical GOP. All he does is stir the pot because ultimately, he's a hateful, spiteful person who will never be happy. It's how personality disordered people are.
2
The only way to have believed that Donald Trump intended to be a pro-Queer President is to have ignored his campaign. Trump courted the evangelical community, choose an evangelical Christian as a running mate, showed us a list of individuals who he would name to the judgeships -- all of whom were assumed to be inclined to protect "religious liberty" at the expense of LGBTQ individuals. Trump does not have "Gay Amnesia". He is a President who promised an anti-Queer Administration and he is following through on that promise.
12
To be fair to Trump, he said he'd protect LGBTQ people from those icky terrible foreign Muslims, not that he'd protect them from home-grown patriotic American Christians.
2
Frank, so inclined to naïveté and hope in spite of gazing directly into the maw of our incessantly lying, demagogic, amoral commander in chief who has never given him a genuine reason to hope.
Trump cares not a whit about your dignity or welfare, and never has.
1
I am transgender. Hormones. The whole lot. I never came out at work for fear of losing my public education employment. [The first thought of the public on finding out? Child molester.] Even in retirement I am not fully out. I live is a Trumpistan village. I keep my head low and androgyny reigns. But now, now. Times will get worse. Protections lost. Fear increased. And I fear for the children most. For they are the new scourge, new pestilence, the bathroom perverts, and new evil of the Evangelical, moral, Jesus loving, Christian right.
3
Frank, if you seriously ever believed a word Trump said before, during or after the campaign, you're the fool here.
If his base takes their animus to the logical ends that Trump encourages, you'll see bloodshed, and you'll hear him excuse it and blame the victims.
3
I think it's all about $$$
Currently, cash is coming from the religious supporters and they do not think very highly of the LGBT community
1
Mr Bruni you wrote several columns in which you made false equivalencies between Clinton and Trump. Do you regret that now?
3
Mr Bruni, When you hold your colleague Ross Douthat to a standard of decency, instead of ignoring his intolerance toward gays, I will take you seriously, but not a second before. I predict that you never will because you have a self-destructive idea about
civility.
1
How is Bruni a minority? Either I'm confused or he's confused.
Administration evangelicals are the cause of this latest outburst of hatred against the LGBTQ community.
Republican evangelicals want to destroy us. This has been true all my queer life and it will never change.
I vote for Democrats not only because they have more integrity than Republicans but also because they're the only bulwark against The Handmaid's Tale.
1
Just because this Administration hasn't made transgender and LGBTQ issues its top priorities, doesn't mean it's homophobic. The Democrat Party is made up of a conglomeration of identity partisans demanding their niche issue by #1 at all times, or else you are a racist or homophobe. What they miss is that there are a lot of issues that the broader public cares about (security, prosperity), not just those San Francisco ignores (homelessness, housing, etc) or finds important (transgender bathrooms in elementary schools). Sometimes you just have to realize not everything is about you, like Trump voters did for the prior 30 years. Take a breath and relax, you'll get your turn again.
The morning after, after a Trump slumber party at the (LCR) log cabin.
I'm not interested in parsing Trump's sentences to discover new lies. It has been evident from the beginning that he will hate any group that may be useful in his culture war, to rouse his base of deplorables, particularly when those groups tend to vote Democratic. We have a lying, incompetent, traitorous idiot who was placed in the White House through Russian government-funded manipulators conspiring with the worst elements of American political hacks.
Reluctantly, like "I, Claudius," I reluctantly say, "Let all the poison that lurks in the mud hatch out." Let's focus on the big picture, not get sidetracked by each new verbal salvo. A day of reckoning must come for these traitors.
3
First they came....
2
Trump is just fine with the violence and oppression of a hateful domestic ideology.
World, meet Trumpism.
1
Never forget what Trump said to John Dickerson of CBS News, "I don't stand behind anything". Most of the things that Trump says are lies, but that time he told us the absolute truth about himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6pyzb6o4Z4
1
Why so disappointed? Because Trump lies and lied? Or because you were conned? Anyone who thought for a nanosecond that Trump was empathetic to his or her own personal agenda is the classic Trump target and naive fool. You’re not alone, Frank. There are masses of the duped out there. “He’s not so bad” has quickly become “He’s worse than we thought.” But what are we going to do about it? That’s the real question.
4
The second comment Trump makes, "And I have to say as a Republicans, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said," is actually an amazing stroke, literally stroking the egos of his Republican audience, commending them for cheering "what I just said," and telling them they are not hateful people, despite what other people, and certain media outlets may say about Republicans.
This stroking of his audience ego is one of his signature moves, and it opened my eyes to one reason why Trump supporters are so devoted to him.
1
WOW! You mean trump lied? Who would ever expect that!
1
The upside down rainbow flag should have been a tip-off.
3
To sum up, Donald Trump told a lie in order to get applause?
Huh. How about that?
2
Frank can you accept that as usual all trump did that day at the convention was lie. He even lies about his lies. I do not share your confidence about the long run. Many Jews under Hitler thought that they would be safe as well and we all know how that turned out. Trump and his followers are scary, be afraid. Vote.
4
"He was focused on what he has frequently called “radical Islamic” beliefs and terror, and was saying that gay people needn’t fear the spread of those into America on his watch." It is you, dear Mr. Bruni, who needs a memory rehabilitation. Trump did not make up radical Islamic beliefs and terror. They are real. Have you forgotten the slaughter of Orlando, masterminded by an Islamic Terrorist spreading hate and loathing of homosexuals, one of the pillars of their vile philosophy? Were there no gays in the World Trade Center? Is that why you have written that off as a figment of Mr. Trump's imagination? What in the world are you thinking? One of the hallmarks of ISIS is their loathing of sexual liberation and their avowed hatred of gays. Wake up, dear sir. You should count yourself a lucky man to have a president dedicated to protecting you and your sexual liberation.
It is all about his base. And, they ARE base. You can see him come alive when his narcissism is being fed at these rallies. He will say anything as long as it brings him uproarious laughter or applause. Hate speech gets him those reactions. He’ll lie and lie and grin at the “lock her up” chants. Like a vampire, he feeds off these people. They’re what keep him going. They give him vitality.
I draw a clear line between his vicious rhetoric directed at both the press and the Democrats and what is happening today with these pipe bombs. I imagine that Muslims and Hispanics are going to feel more hatred coming at them due to his “caravan” nonesense. Why should transgender people excape his vile hatred. They’re “other” too.
I do not recognize us anymore. It is so amazing that one ignorant bigot can stir up an entire country with his evil words. We have become the country of hate and fear and rage. We must vote for a course correction!
3
Makes one really wonder what happened to the Studio 54 mixing, gay flag wrapped, Andy Warhol and Roy Cohen loving, New York City-slicker, and recent openly-gay judge appointer.
We can hope he reappears after he gets impeached by the new Congress and just before Pence is sworn into office.
1
I worked with children with “ anomalous external genitalia”. At birth it cam be impossible determine sex visually as the vulva can swell and the testicular tissue can be swollen too. I worked with a child who had to have DNA testing to confirm the sex. The baby had other medical problems and the parents wanted baptism right away. They named the child Jesse Lee because no body knew if the baby was a boy or a girl.
Jo Nanson
Only the delusional self-hating gays believed the campaign promises of Trump. He selected Pence as his VP. How telling.
1
Why would anyone be optimistic about the "long run?" Except that in the long run, we're all dead. Democrats haven't identified a leader with the charismatic leadership potential of President Obama -- or anything close to it. Trump has galvanized the dark forces of White Nationalism. We're close to the collapse of civil and personal rights. Meanwhile the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class is substituting hate of "The Other" for economic progress. The only thing that can save us is a massive recession with high unemployment. That's our optimistic outlook.
I always thought that this particular flag Trump held had been scrawled on by someone in his campaign and was merely a prop. No self respecting LGBTQ member would ever in a million years submitted such a hideous representation of its people. The magic marker lettering shows no sign of thought or care in the slightest amount. The majority of my tribe have a propensity for artistry which this prop is alien of.
When I heard that Trump pledged to be friendly to gay and transgender Americans, I was severely skeptical, knowing the past statements he had made about other minorities. But later, I actually did have some hope that he would protect our rights from the hateful views of other members of his party.
Fast forward to today. His cabinet members are known bigoted homophobes, ESPECIALLY Sessions, Perry and DeVos, and he has sought to slice the few protections for transgender Americans that exist in our court. He sat Gorsuch and Kavanaugh down on the court, both widely feared to be severely hostile to LGBT rights. His Vice President is perhaps one of the most obnoxiously hateful xenophobic bigots in the government today who is best friends with a proponent of the abhorrent practice of conversion therapy, James Dobson.
Marching in the streets against the federal government’s prejudices has been largely ineffective as Trump has responded by simply dismissing protesters as the “unhinged left” and “paid by George Soros”, triggering horrid threats of violence by his supporters against these marchers and their organizers. The only way we can force the POTUS to acknowledge our civil rights is through the courts. He tried to deny transgender people the right to prove themselves worthy for military service and we told him NO and sued him. We need to keep doing this if he won’t cease his attacks on our civil rights. Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.
When has trump wasted much time parsing his past statements? He just adds another lie to his pile and bulldozes on, trusting in his base and the news media to follow the next shiny distraction.
This is the closest thing he has to a strategy and it has worked out pretty well for him.
1
Here's the problem with this story. Trump is not a conservative. He speaks it as a 2nd language. He is a Populist who wants to do deals.
The sad part of all this is that the Democrats could have easily engaged him and gotten a lot of great things done for their constituents.
Instead, they bare heir fangs and hide behind their little #Resistance banners and refuse to talk to him or Republicans.
You want to fix the healthcare Democrats ruined? Engage.
You want to be part of this economy? Engage
Otherwise he has no choice but to dance with the Freedom Caucus. If you've been paying attention at all...you will note that he is no fan of the Freedom Caucus.
As to the first question. Does Trump remember his convention speech?
Better Q; Does he care?
Ans; No, not one iota. He's all about pleasing his Evangelical supporters and their flocks. Anything to please the known supporters, then the possibility of gathering in a more diverse group. He's not going to stop playing to his known supporters. You can all stop hoping and lighting candles that he might.
He's gonna keep serving the same dish to the same buyers.
Trump is a professional campaigner.
So who's running the West Wing?
The Church Lady. And I bet he uses every excuse in the book to keep Trump on the road and out of his sanctuary.
I wouldn't be too confident about the "long run" that Frank Bruni mentions, especially if the House does not flip on election day. Corrupt, conniving Trump and his contemptible GOP enablers have us just about where they want us: looming permanent, one party, minority rule, with shameless, twisted control of all branches of government. In less than two years, they've managed to erode two centuries of (sometimes halting) civil progress and have made no secret of how much further they intend to go. So much for the inevitable advance of the vaunted "American experiment" - it's a lot more vulnerable than I ever could have imagined.
1
What did you expect Frank? The man appears to have formed no permanent allegiances other than to Ivanka and himself. Not even to his dog, of which he doesn't care to have one.
1
An unprincipled man will say anything for gain. Trump void of principle does it all the time.
1
Regardless of the 'promises' that Trump made, I find it interesting that the rainbow flag he is holding is upside down. Sort of like having the stars and stripes flown upside down.
Whoever owns and wrote on that flag obviously doesn't understand his/her own community
1
It is largely Trump's willingness to be used as a Christian evangelical/fundamentalist tool.
Pence and his ilk are obsessed with what people do with their bodies in private. They weaponized their religion to erase and diminish people who are different than them. It was a political choice, because there a many examples of Christian theology that increases empathy and understanding between folks. Chris Hedges identified it as "Christian Fascism" and it is a perversion of religious ideas leading to brittle, defensive, stalwart religious identity.
The one thing this president has done is uncovered the racism and bigotry that still exists in this country. No high road for trump. All he cares about is the cheers that he gets from his adoring groupies. It’s so sad that this man goes to bed thinking he is so popular. All one can wish for is that enough people come to their senses and get out and vote for people that will help restore our morals and ethics and world standing.
As for those particular friends of mine who have been gloating about their stock market gains that they have attributed to trump all year; guess today wipes out that excuse.
Frank the only truth that you can believe from Trump and his enablers is when they are defeated at the polls. Anything else they say or do has no meaning or value whatsoever.
1
He said he would protect the LGBTQ community from violence from a hostile foreign power. He didn’t promise not to roll back progress made during the Obama administration. People were not listening. It was in plain sight.
Bruni asks:
"How, then, to interpret Trump’s convention speech in retrospect?"
The answer is quite simple, really: He was lying.
He was thinking and talking purely to score points at the moment, just like he always doeswith no intention of ever acting on his words.
There's nothing else to try to read into it.
to all Trump supporters in the LGBTQ community, and their allies:
"First they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist so I did nothing ..."
I did not believe a word Trump said when he made that statement in 2016, and I thought the moment of him holding the Pride flag in Colorado was a complete joke. After all, look who he chose to be his vice president.
These days--I'll turn 75 next week--nearly all my friends are gay, because as a single woman, I would lose my male friends when they got married (wives look askance at a husband's single women friends), and my supervisor at my last in-house job is a lesbian and a good friend. But what really upsets me about this new Trumpian (and Pencian) bigotry dates back 40 years to the rocky breakup with the only guy I was ever even close to being in love with. He proposed to me after a party where we'd both had a lot to drink, and I was surprised because he was basically gay. But when he said that marriage would change his orientation, I told him it was unlikely, and he was adorable just as he was. That was too much for his Catholic conscience, and after a few emotional letters back and forth, it was all over. I still hope he survived and thrived--and think of him every time I see "Annie Hall."
8
As soon as I heard about the plan to “erase” Trans individuals, I remembered that convention scene when Trump was effusive in his support of the LGBTQ communities. At least I believe he included the “Q” at the end – he may not have. In any event, whether “Q” or “T”, he stumbled over the final initial.
Clearly, the man has given a green light to any policy that flogs the perceived interests of the most religious among his base; but I still don’t believe that he is in any way personally vested in such retrograde convictions. He means to win, in two weeks and in two years, and he needs that base to do it. But he is a New Yorker and must have tons of acquaintances who are gay, and before he co-opted his base he never exhibited such disdain since he emerged from his Queens adolescence.
The fact that he may support this policy while not believing in it actually makes his toleration of it worse. This isn’t a victimless crime – it seeks to affect the lives of real people.
Like Frank, I’m confident that the astonishing progressive movement in American acceptance of the LGBTQ communities since the Stonewall will proceed apace, Trump or no Trump. I wish that Trump didn’t find this distraction necessary for political aims.
I look forward to seeing him re-elected in 2020 (should he continue to deliver generally), so that I can join so many Americans in celebrating his drop-kicking of his current extreme base, that he will ever need again for ANYTHING, into the Potomac.
@Richard Luettgen: oh, you think he’s going to “drop-kick his base” if re-elected? I have a bridge to sell you, in perfect condition. See, Trump feeds off his base. He experiences a validation which he doesn’t get from the “adults” in Washington. He’s hooked on crowds screaming his name, just like a heroin junkie is hooked on the needle. He’s basically persona non grata in any district without an overwhelming proportion of fundamentalist evangelicals. And you think he’s gonna turn his back on them? Lay off the Kool-aid.
1
@Richard Luettgen, “but I still don’t believe that he is in any way personally vested in such retrograde convictions”. Is he personally vested in anything, save himself? Really, he cares about nothing, has no integrity, and will do just about anything for a buck. I actually don’t think he cares about Evangelicals or anything religious for that matter, let alone any American but himself. He’d even sacrifice his kids, of need be. And don’t even get me started on Melania, the most bullied person in the world...”oh poor me”! Richard, you really are a lemming.
1
@Richard Luettgen
Well geez, Roy Cohn comes to mind.
I like your mental gymnastics in an attempt to absolve him from the very core of his political existence, but you failed. We see him quite clearly for the dangerous "man" he is. The "man" that aspires to be top dog in global profiteering despotism. He does not care that lots of folks will be hurt in the process. He thrives on it. It is his fuel and he is responsible for the outcomes. There will be drop-kicking, to borrow your disturbing, colorful phrase, but his precious base is too stupid to know it when it's happening to them. The rest of us will take the brunt. Make no mistake about it.
1
Mr. Bruni seems to have a case of amnesia here.
The Pulse nightclub shooting occurred only about a month before the Republican National Convention and Trump's acceptance speech.
Trump's line about 'violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology' clearly referred to that incident. And, Trump only cared that members of the LGBTQ community were gunned down because the shooter was Muslim and thus played into Trump's larger xenophobic campaign themes.
5
Dear Mr. Bruni: It really isn’t all that complicated. You can never, ever trust Trump. He has betrayed everyone who has ever trusted him, with the possible exception of a few close family members (just ask Ivanka and Marla about that).
Please do not cherish the hope that Trump will ever make good on his convention promise (if indeed that’s what it was). It will only cause you more pain and it won’t help anyone else.
8
The last line of Mr Bruni's June 26, 2015 revelations for people finally liberated to live their identity:
"a majority of justices told a minority of Americans that they’re normal and that they belong — fully, joyously and with cake."
Updating to .. "and especially with cake", Mr Bruni.
Since justice for oppressed minorities is always long overdue, accepting excuses for breaking laws & rulings against discrimination must be widely viewed as a non-starter.
Entertaining micky-mouse explanations from every dissenting guild will only encourage a regression with animosity. By law, refusing service is discrimination, plain and simple discrimination.
4
You simply can't take the president at his word, but you can take his words as truth if said to a rip-roaring mob of MAGA hats.
8
I don't think this is quite true, Frank. I think this has to do with the ACA and how states have to comply to receive Federal assistance for medicaid and medicare or claim religious exemption, opting out of medical insurance.
Therefore what is a pre-existing condition? I am all for rights including my own when they have been used and abused.
As for Islam that is a problem for a number of reasons. And, I am not anti-muslim.
1
@Tammy
What does barring LGBT people from the military and civil rights protections have to do with allowing states to discriminate against them in offering ACA benefits?
9
@truth in advertising You are responding to someone who does not know her elbow from her knee.
Thanks, Mr. Bruni
As a senior and mother of a gay son I always appreciate
your voice. I have lived through a lot and was so hopeful of change during the Obama era. Trump has brought us
backwards but I hope we can regain those positive
steps when Trump leaves office.
30
Human rights denied to some are human rights denied to all, and I for one will keep fighting so that all may have respect, dignity and acceptance no matter who they are.
It will take standing in lines for long period of times to vote.
It will take going to court again and again and again to stand up to radical right wing governments and demagogues.
It will take column after column expressing courage.
It will take parents teaching not to hate.
It will take perhaps a generation or two to remain vigilant, be patient and keep on teaching respect and acceptance, but we will get there.
59
@FunkyIrishman: Hear! Hear! Especially parents teaching.
@FunkyIrishman Human rights denied to some are human rights denied to some. Every society has its exploitable class and homosexuals are part of ours.
You next to last sentence is: "I’m still confident about the long run. But the present isn’t pretty." That is false hope. The up hill battle to get some sense of equality for LGBTQ citizens and other minority or marginalized groups has been going on for what seems like centuries and here we are - pushed way back again and stomped on. Hope is all but gone. It's shifting fast from two steps forward, one step back to one step forward, two steps back.
I sense that equality will not be achieved now or in the future. However, we (all marginalized groups) must keep trying to achieve it.
15
@Dan G As long as religion is the driving force behind these regressive policies there is little hope.
@Dan G
Equality? Geez that sounds pretty good right about now. I'm worried about survival. He and his nationalists are clearly coming for us.
The political cost to support LGBT rights is outweighed by the slings and arrows of his lovely base of supporters.
He shifts with the wind - more so it seems than other seasoned politicians - based on his inane off the cuff promises (10% tax cut before the mid-term for middle class voters).
It was not a sincere support he made in 2016 - but it sounded good at the time.
This is how Mr. "Wing-it" will continue to operate - it is his nature.
17
Really, Frank, this is a big nothing for a man of your insights and talents. Don’t get me wrong, I have high respect for you. But Trump was lying long before his campaign began in the interests of self-enrichment and greed without regard to another human being. I knew his campaign speeches were more of the same then, as I do now. And I think you did, and still do too.
Please, you can give us more than a disappointing sigh at this juncture. Trump is not a friend to the LGBTQ world. Not close.
17
Amnesia or Bold Faced Lie?
19
His base does not like gay people. He's going with the flow.
22
“Going with the low” I think you mean.
1
This has Mike Pence written all over it. I think Pence tells trump what the Evangelical base wants to hear and trump has zero moral compass so he goes along with Pence’s ignorant, hate rhetoric.
72
@Nowhere Girl That's called good leadership. And that ignorant hate rhetoric? We call it a return to morality and common sense.
I am Jack's total lack of surprise.
7
As foolish for any LGBTQ to believe Trump's words of honor to protect hard earned rights by voting for him, the specter of an avowed and twisted hater looming in the form of Mike Pence should have made all think twice while casting their vote.
54
"Drivel" doesn't even come close. At best, it is among the half-truths, but in reality, habitual bald-faced lying is Trump's standard approach.
14
Trump is no friend to the LBGTQ. He used people to vote for him.
Ask those in coal country, any new steel or coal mines being
opened?
Ask the Farmers in North Dakota that backed him, how it feels to have your crops drop half their worth?
29
President Trump doesn't remember, by the end of a sentence, what he said at the beginning of the sentence, much less, two years later. Add to that, his general disdain for, well, almost everyone but himself, it's frightening that anyone would trust him for anything, as far as they could throw him.
35
Mr Bruni, Mr Trump never truly cared for LBGTQ people. In fact, I doubt he cares for anyone other than himself. I have a transgender friend who would be actively discriminated against if any of Trumps outlandish proposals go through. Already any person who is any shade of brown or darker is actively discriminated against. Women are discriminated against. Where will it end with this man? Since Trump is so vocal in his vitriol and hatred, he's given tacit permission for others to be openly hateful. What a mess we are in. We have to vote the worst offenders out. I'm afraid, though, that change will come slowly.
16
Sorry you were disappointed Frank, but you of all people- being a writer and a journalist- should not have expected anything more than the standard product.
Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth continuously.
Every day another lie, then another denial, then cover-up.
Everybody is off balance.
And the tactic is to keep us that way.
"He said what?" "To whom?"
"No, I just read that he said something totally different."
We all know why it would be, or should be, or is not.
12
Trump hasn't got one fixed belief
The mark of the Real Estate thief,
It's money that's honey
That makes dark days sunny,
Gay America? Part of his fief.
35
Anybody wonder why this position paper leaked to the Times a few weeks before the election? I think Trump leaked it himself. He wants to define Democrats as the champions of transgender rights so he doesn't have to talk about healthcare. Or his tax cut for himself.
This is President Trump playing the New York Times like a fiddle.
19
@Schrodinger Or the Mueller investigation. Is that thing still going on?
This is all be driven by Pence and the christian right who are making these decisions.Trump's just the puppet on stage.
25
@robert conger. Can we please stop given Trump an out. Yes, Pence pushes an anti-Queer agenda but Trump is the President of the United States. The power lies with him and he is more thsn willing to discriminate against and marginalize men and women who do not confoem to strict male/female/heterosexual gender roles. Trump needs to be held accountable, not allowed to hide because we say “It is really Pence.”
1
Frank, I always interpreted his statement as simply including LGBT Americans in his general promise to keep "hateful foreign ideology" from our shores, by which he meant radical Islamism. He didn't say anything about protecting LGBTs from home-grown extremist Christianism or other conservative and their attacks on our safety and well-being. He's not going to protect us from home-grown violence and oppression. Indeed, he hasn't. Mr. Trump is very clever with words, and saying things that he knows will be misinterpreted, but give him avenues around actually being held to what others have wishfully inferred.
20
Confident about what long run? The long run of the next 2 and possibly 6 years under Trump or just our nation in general? I have no reason for optimism under this administration and that includes the current GOP controlled Congress (spineless as they are). I'm a 71-year-old lesbian and have lived through a lot but nothing this terrible and it has the potential for getting so much worse. I haven't given up and I will continue to fight as I can but his wanting to examine how we are defined sexually is disturbing. Who might they come after next?
46
What? You expect consistency from Mr. Trump? His only consistency is self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. Everything else is window dressing, easily cast aside when it suits him to change like the shape-shifter he is.
23
Trump lied at the convention. Why you should have thought differently is beyond me ... he had lied throughout the campaign; why should the convention have been different?
18
Re Trump's statement: "I will do everything in my power to protect our L.G.B.T.Q. citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” All that said, it appears, however, that the Trump administration has no intention of protecting our LGBTQ community from the violence and oppression of a hateful domestic ideology.
58
Trump lies for fun and tells more focused, intentional lies when expedient. I don't know into which category his lies about support for the LGBTQ community and individuals fit, but they were (predictably) lies.
This man would likely sell off his own children if it helped him in some way so that he would quickly purchase a grand, golden bus with which to run over LGBTQ folks to further his relationships with those on the religious right who wish to move us back to the 1830's should be no surprise to anyone.
I, too, have hope for the long haul but that doesn't mean we should wait for it to work itself out: we must push back, defend our friends, and affirm to all that your identity and personhood--your humanity--is never in doubt in this country. We must create a climate in which all are afforded dignity, respect, and care.
18
Trump does not have amnesiaHe never intended to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community, nor did he intend to protect the rights of immigrants, people with dark skin, women , children left at the border, people with pre existing medical conditions, people who disagree with him and people who work in our Justice System.He has created corruption and chaos which has infected the Republican Party.It is a sad, sad political scene now.We can only hope that voters will be energized and return Democrats to office.
27
Does anyone really have trouble figuring out resident Trump anymore? It's simple: He will do whatever gets him the loudest applause and the brightest spotlight, everywhere, every time. He is unencumbered by the thought process, doesn't have any beliefs or true ideology. LGBT rights are great...in front of an audience of LGBT supporters.
He truly doesn't know or care what he says, and has the attention span of a toddler. No one listens to DJT less that DJT does- he's too busy listening to the roar of the crowd.
29
I remember during the campaign that certain Trump apologists cited his "cosmopolitan" upbringing in the world's foremost cosmopolis, New York City, his hobnobbing with the glitterati therein, and how that argued against him possessing any deep animus towards the LGBTQ community.
I laughed until I got a stitch in my side at the sheer naiveté of that position, having long concluded from his atrocious track record towards minorities as a so-called landlord (slumlord?) that he was a bigot through and through. Total bigots, as Trump is, do not discriminate in the application of their hate.
28
Thanks, Mr. Bruni. I try to remain positive, but Trump has made it hard. Your last paragraph was just excellent writing.
10
I’m paraphrasing here, but didn’t Jesus say we’ll be measured by how we treat “the least amongst us.? I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it to reflect on how a person defines their existence. That’s a choice that LGBT people, all people, are allowed to make for themselves.
No, he meant it for people who have been marginalized. Think of the homeless if that helps. Because who are we to judge people who, for no good reason, are considered to be “lesser”?
There can’t be a place or a sentiment like that in America. Well, at least not the America in and cherish. But now, and largely thanks to the president, the person who sets the tone for us as a nation, we have become deeply divided among many categories. How can anyone be “less equal” than anyone else? That’s what Orwell warned us about.
But here we are. Like Frank, I’m a long-term optimist. But there’s very little to be optimistic about in the present.
21
@HeyJoe415
Shouldn't be a big surprise, just look at the demonization of the poor that we routinely see with the GOP, the adoption of the Ayn Rand mantra that if you are poor, it is because you are lazy or a loser or some such (while if you are rich, well, you must be special and blessed). How many preachers in the evangelical community talk about welfare as being against God's will, or social services 'weakening' people, or worse, saying that Jesus was joking when he denounced the well off who kept their money and didn't help others, or the Joel Osteen's of the world telling people Jesus wants them to be billionaires? Conservatives who claim to be the party of Jesus, have turned the bible on its head and the religious clucks havve marched right in step with it.
Jesus told people to not judge others and to treat others with love, the prime law according to Christ was love others as you love God and yourself; I doubt very many people would say that about the GOP, Trump nation or Trump himself.
10
@HeyJoe415
It's easy to call yourself a Christian. Only about 10% of those who do act on it.
Given that the Republican National Convention was just a month after the Pulse nightclub mass murder spree, it's absolutely a safe bet that Trump was talking about Islamic fundamentalism.
But whatever he meant, we should treat him as we would any other liar and pay more attention to what he does than what he says.
But beyond that... the promise of America (which Trump proudly defiles on a regular basis) is that over time, rights, privileges and protections are extended to more and more of us, not fewer and fewer. A fair reward to Trump and his party loyalists for their betrayal of the American promise would be to replace them with as many Democrats as we can possibly vote into office.
Thirteen days and counting down...
38
I hope you didn't honestly believe he wanted to protect your rights.
23
Trump is the ultimate sell-out. The ultimate liar. He's sold out people of color, immigrants, women and even true patriots. Why wouldn't he also sell out the LGBT community? Literally, no one except straight, white males are to ever be kings in this court. He's also busy selling out the most vulnerable among us: The sick, the poor and the elderly. What are we going to do about it?
28
Vote.
Trump lies. Nothing new. But what is disconcerting is the DHHS proposal regarding gender definition. If you examine the strategy employed by trump and the republicans, you find that they accomplish their agenda by chipping away at established rights. In this way, their actions gain less attention. Today transgender individuals, tomorrow gay marriage. This man and his party are dangerous. Pay attention, folks. We could be living under a new Mussolini.
42
I am not sure why nobody is calling to task the obvious fact that anything to do with LGBT issues is more likely coming from the religious extremist Pence behind the scenes, just like Cheney was behind most of the horrors of the W era.
52
@Nelson Harper
Sure, whatever. What difference does it make? We are still in the cross hairs.
I suppose he can always claim that he only promised to protect LGBQT citizens from, "a hateful foreign ideology," not from his own hateful domestic ideology.
87
Your discussion buddy Ross Douthat spent years of his life struggling against gay marriage. In his mind the pursuit of happiness only applied to heterosexuas. He has given up for the moment in trying to turn things back. But still he holds out hope that the Supreme Court will find ways to erode gains LGBTQ have achieved.
And his sex negative, punitive assault on women whose bodies he has an almost maniacal need to control always goes unmentioned in your conversations.
46
Trump and his administration are certainly obsessed with people's genitals. We knew Trump liked to "grab them" even before the election, but who knew he and his cabinet members are still thinking about them?
34
@Linda: Have Republicans ever STOPPED thinking about/obsessing over genitals and what's going with them in the privacy of people's homes?
2
He's a transactional president - everyone knows that (everyone who wanted to know the facts), at least since he first stepped foot in NYC. But he waves a rainbow flag and he gets votes from the LGBTQ community, some even spoke out for him! Well, like the conman he is, he sees a better option, he doesn't need them anymore the Evangelical sect with a bucket load of mulligans are worth more to him (for the moment).
I read your article and some others, some say it won't stop here, nor at nullifying (outlawing? penalizing?) the LGBTQ community, but will go further into eroding civil rights, right to the heart of all that MLK fought for and even deeper and further than that. Sounds impossible - history will remind how easily it's done.
Once you start to unpick things it's extremely difficult to impossible to stop everything from unraveling, and in the very act of unpicking/unprotecting you throw a spotlight, single them them as vulnerable to attack – easy pickings, easy targets.
12
Trump World contains no objective truths or fixed principles other than the accumulation of money and power for the Trump and Kushner Crime Families.
34
That Donald would so casually throw out red meat to his base without regard for the direct and violent attack on trans people with this proposal -- and eliminating an entire class of people is violent -- shows his capacity for cruelty and intolerance as well as hid disregard for legal precedent.
In context, Donald is promising tax cuts, threatening invasion by middle-east, MS-13 gangsters and thousands of hungry kids, and dissing the Clintons, Soros and Democrats all to get out the 40% of people who comprise his base.
And bombs are made and delivered to Donald's targets. And the great divider who lies so casually, now calls for unity. Everybody knows he's lying.
41
Trump eventually makes fools of all who trust him. Any good that Trump may provide to someone other than himself is, at best, coincidental and, in the worst case, a poisoned chalice.
The LGBTQ community is an obvious example, but hardly the only one. Take the black unemployment rate. There is virtually no means short of outright segregation by which Trump could lower unemployment for his base without lowering black unemployment. Yet he demands credit from blacks as if the coincidental benefit of general unemployment makes up for his purposeful disparagement of almost every minority demographic in the world.
Even those who THINK they are benefiting are essentially building their own gallows. Every precedent the Trump administration provides to allow Christian evangelicals to discriminate against the LGBTQ could quite easily be used to persecute all U.S. Christians (not just evangelicals) should they become truly unpopular. In the long term, Christians are LESS secure in their rights because of the bigoted initiatives advanced by Trump and the GOP.
Coal miners may like deregulation, but the fact of the matter is that a true leader would be floating options to get them out of mines, not sending them deeper underground. And the cost-benefit calculation of ignoring climate change is becoming quite evident to anyone near water.
From healthcare to tax cuts to nuclear weapons, the long term implications of Trump's leadership are not good.
24
Trump is the perfect mirror for how a large percentage of the American population feels, if not the majority of it. I cite as an example a conversation that I overheard at the Ohio Cattleman’s Association food tent at the Ohio State Fair this summer. A cattle farmer in his early 50’s was asking the very young son of a friend of his if he “liked” boys or girls. The boy said “girls”. The response was “Thank God for that”, and high fives him. My point being that all theses feelings that are being expressed now were kept hidden for decades. Trump’s behavior has given permission for them to be once again expressed. We are not the progressive country that one sees in the large cities. We are the same backward country that shows up in the Illustrated Betty Crocker Cookbook of the 1950s. Read it and weep.
120
@Al
When I was growing up "very young" children usually professed to hate the opposite sex. Thus all the stories and cartoon with treehouses having sign saying no girls allowed and girls often saying boys stink! If someone very young professed to like the opposite sex they were considered weird!
Dear Mr.Bruni,
You have realized that the POTUS has shortchanged you. You thought you were getting recognition for who you are but all you may gotten is a promise to keep homophobic foreign influence at bay.
Join the long line of creditors, subcontractors and business partners who have been shortchanged by the POTUS. To them I would add those folks who are getting a tax cut equal to their online streaming service's fees, while the 1% are about to break the bank. Add those voters who believed he would not touch Medicaid, Medicare or social security and thought that the ACA would be replaced with healthcare that would be better and cheaper.
As you write for the New York Times, you should have known what a grifter the POTUS is. I understand your disappointment but surely you are not surprised?
POTUS has made a double pact with Republicans and with Evangelicals. The Republicans went easy on trade, and on opposition to Russian misdeeds to get both lower taxes for the wealthy, promote fossil fuels, and ultimately to cut the safety net. Evangelicalsl got a president who is happy to eliminate laws preventing discrimination against LGBT and to turn the SCOTUS back to the philosophy of decades, ago.
Before this country unravels, Democrats have to get out the vote in order to stop the rot.
69
@Arthur, I am pretty sure that Mr. Bruni did not buy into Trump's lies. That's different from exposing his them.
13
Trump and Republicans are playing a dangerous game. Our country was founded in revolution. At the core of that revolution was the injustice of taxation of the colonists without their representation in parliament. Fair representation is the bedrock of a democratic society. Whatever views the founders may have had about who ought to vote and their antiquated views about not giving the vote to black peoples or women, you won’t find one word in the Federalist papers condoning a majority of the people being governed by a minority.
There is increasing awareness that the government of the United States is controlled by a minority party that is governing in ways contrary to the will of the majority. Whether this is the result of our quirky electoral college or our ill-conceived distribution of senate seats to states populated mostly by cows.
Whether it is the result of out and out chicanery by Republicans in deliberately suppressing the vote by purging voter rolls, obstructing voter registration or intimidating voters through threats of prosecution for fraudulent voting. Or whether it is the result of outlandishly gerrymandered congressional districts. The result is the same. Republicans have succeeded in their pursuit of power for its own sake to a point that is manifestly unacceptable. It was unacceptable to the colonists, and, one way or another, it will be unacceptable to a majority of Americans today.
Our Revolution was fought to redress the same injustice we suffer now.
95
@Robert
I'll see you in the streets, sir. Thank You for the reminder.
7
This is frustrating - not the content of this column, I agree with that completely, but the conflation of "gay" with "LGBT." "Gay" is the "G," not the whole thing, please don't use "gay" as a synonym for "LGBT" - there are those of us in the LGBT community who are not gay.
7
@Chrissy I know you're right, but to many Americans, 'gay' is as far as they get in comprehension. Details are unwelcome and avoided. My own situation is complicated, and try as I might to explain, it's a murky road to my casual friends. Even my kids don't want to know. I'm content with trying to keep up with my own shortcomings, and let others deal with theirs. 'Gay' is okay.
17
Donald Trump is not suffering from amnesia. The problem with Donald Trump is that he thinks about no one nothing except Donald Trump. He doesn't care about America and he doesn't care about Americans, and this includes his gullible supporters.
61
@ChristopherM I think it might be more that he enjoys hurting people and then observing the effects.
15
I take cold comfort in the fact that Trump hurts his own supporters most of all. They deserve the awful government he gives them.
1
Frank, I appreciate your earnest effort to parse 45’s words in that campaign moment with care and thoughtfulness. But why not just say it?
He lied.
He used LGBTQ people in that moment.
He exploited the diversity card (cf “There’s my African American!”) to get votes.
Any LGBTQ people who voted for 45 now get to sit with the knowledge that with their vote they also empowered an administration that will do try everything it can to undo their civil rights.
143
To be fair to him, he specified that he would protect LGBTQ citizens from violence and oppression of hateful *foreign* ideology. Maybe hate and oppression is ok when it's domestic.
I wonder how many gay people fell for this rhetoric. My fear is, more than what you think.
85
@Alkis H Log Cabin Republican chapters all across the country endorsed Trump in 2016, even though the national organization declined to. And then there are trolls like Milo Yiannopoulis who have made an entire career out of their support of Trump. So yes, many LGBTQ people inexplicably fell for his rhetoric.
@Alkis Agree, it was obvious what he meant at the time! They were constantly saying that they were doing more than liberals for LGBTQ people because they were so anti-Muslim.
Trump lies. Lying is basic to his nature. It has also been very very profitable for him, in real estate, in politics, and in his relationships with women (at least, in the ways that matter to him). And obviously he ENJOYS lying very very much.
61
I'd be amazed if Trump remembered what he had for breakfast this morning, let alone a speech he gave in 2016.
53
Frank, I truly feel your pain. One of my teenaged granddaughters is Gay, but not quite “ out “. I will fight to my last breath to ensure that SHE is treated fairly and equally. So help me God.
81
Liars lie. Sociopathic narcissists lie. Trump lies. Trump lies the way fish swim and birds fly, it is in his nature.
The only principle that motivates him is self-interest. A corollary of this is he hates people who are not like him. Now that he has power, he wants to use it to benefit himself and punish those he dislikes.
Today, you are on the list of people he dislikes. The list might get longer tomorrow and include me. That's why this is not only a LGBT issue, it is an issue for everyone.
203
@MEM Thank you Rev. Bonhoefer.
1