The Republican Convention Trump used Islamophobia to try to coverup Republican homophobia to reassure gay voters that he could be trusted to defend LGBTQ rights. "As your president I will to everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology, believe me."He also said he is a better friend of gays and that "someday, I believe, that will be proven out, bigly." Is today that day? I could be... since his State Department has decided to deny visas to same-sex partners of diplomats and UN officials. A 30 second phone call to Secretary of State Pompeo, would change that with no fuss at all.On Monday, Trump's regime started "denying visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats and United Nations employees, and requiring those already in the United States to get married by the end of the year or leave the country."
The U.S. Mission to the U.N. portrayed the decision-- which foreign diplomats fear will increase hardships for same-sex couples in countries that don’t recognize same-sex marriage-- as an effort to bring its international visa practices in line with current U.S. policy. In light of the landmark 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the U.S. extends diplomatic visas only to married spouses of U.S. diplomats.“Same-sex spouses of U.S. diplomats now enjoy the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex spouses,” the U.S. mission wrote in a July 12 note to U.N.-based delegations. “Consistent with [State] Department policy, partners accompanying members of permanent missions or seeking to join the same must generally be married in order to be eligible” for a diplomatic visa.But critics says the new policy will impose undue hardships on foreign couples from countries that criminalize same-sex marriages.Samantha Power, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, denounced the new policy on Twitter as “needlessly cruel & bigoted.”GOP closet cases in high places-- no help at all“State Dept. will no longer let same-sex domestic partners of UN employees get visas unless they are married,” she tweeted, noting that “only 12% of UN member states allow same-sex marriage.”In July, the U.S. mission sent out diplomatic notes to the United Nations and representatives for foreign diplomatic missions explaining the new policy, which reversed a 2009 decision by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to grant visas to domestic partners of U.S. and foreign diplomats. The contents of the diplomatic note were first reported in August by the Washington Blade. The 2009 policy, however, did not allow a heterosexual domestic partner of a U.S. or foreign diplomat to enter the country on a diplomatic visa.The new policy-- which enters into force Monday-- requires that foreign domestic partners of diplomats and U.N. officials posted in the United States must show the State Department proof of marriage by Dec. 31, or leave the country within 30 days. As of today, domestic partners of diplomats and U.N. officials based abroad will need to show they are married in order to enter the country on a diplomatic visa. The latest policy change, the United States explained in the note, was aimed at ensuring all couples were treated equally.“The Department of State will not issue a G-4 visa for same-sex domestic partners,” the U.N. human resources chief explained in a note distributed to staff last month. “As of 1 October 2018, same-sex domestic partners… seeking to join newly arrived U.N. officials must provide proof of marriage to eligible for a G-4 visa or to seek a change in such status.”There are currently at least 10 U.N. employees in the United States who would need to get married by the New Year to have their partners’ visas extended.The new policy poses a number of risks for same-sex partners, according to Alfonso Nam, the president of U.N. Globe, a U.N. LGBTI staff advocacy organization.
Sam Gillette, writing for People reported that "Two years and multiple anti-LGBTQ policies later, a new book by his former press secretary Sean Spicer reveals that the sentence in Trump’s convention speech was nothing more than empty payback for a political favor." In his book, The Briefing: Politics, The Press, and The President, Spicer asserted that "Trump’s campaign team was on a mission at the time to derail anti-Trump delegates seeking to prevent Trump from becoming the Republican presidential nominee-- a process that 'Never Trumpers' had initiated by signing a petition ahead of the Republican convention. Manafort and his lieutenants went one by one down the list of people who had signed the petition and persuaded them to remove their signatures. How Manafort and company did this was a scene out of 1950s politics-- alternating between carrot and stick and sometimes bat, even, at one point, conveniently making the convention’s parliamentarian unavailable to keep the opposition from formally submitting their petition. The Manafort message was clear: Trump will be our nominee and our next president, and anyone who didn’t want to work to that end could spend the next four years in political Siberia. (No Russia pun intended.)"
The final name that needed to be scrubbed from the petition, Spicer writes, was that of Washington, D.C., delegate Robert Sinners. The book describes an alleged deal between Sinners, who Spicer says told the Manafort team “he wanted Donald Trump to support gay rights,” and senior Trump communications advisor Jason Miller.“Jason assured Sinners that Trump would be the most ‘inclusive’ candidate the Republican Party ever had,” Spicer writes.“This is your moment, Robert,” Miller told Sinners, according to the book. “You can deliver this.”Sinners then reportedly signed “a form that officially removed his name from the petition,” and the deal was done.“Jason told Sinners Donald Trump’s acceptance speech would acknowledge the LGBT[Q] community, which no other Republican acceptance speech had done,” Spicer writes. “And it did.”
Trump's speech was pure lip-service. Since he occupied the White House his regime has been overtly anti-LGBTQ, from ordering the Defense Department to stop accepting transgender people in the military and having the Justice Department work against the interests of gay families at every opportunity-- such as reversing a policy protecting transgender people from workplace discrimination-- to refusing to follow bipartisan tradition of recognizing Pride Month. The ACLU's legislative director, Ian Thompson, called Trump’s administration "easily the most anti-LGBT administration in at least a generation. They are hard at work trying to dismantle and erase every gain LGBT people have made since 2009."It's worth noting that the LGBTQ community makes up about 5% of the country-- and about 10 million voters, especially important is close races like Florida (700,000 LGBTQ citizens).
