Washington — Among the many subjects voters might contemplate within the 2024 presidential election are LGBTQ rights — and it is a problem the place former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have starkly totally different messages and backgrounds.
A big majority of Individuals help authorized protections for LGBTQ individuals, in keeping with a survey from the Public Faith Analysis Institute. However help is stronger in blue states than pink states, and has declined general in recent times — particularly amongst Republicans. And help for same-sex marriage has additionally seen a slight decline.
In the meantime, 38% of Individuals stated LGBTQ rights are an element of their voting choices, and 30% say they are going to vote just for a candidate who aligns with them on the difficulty.
This is what to know in regards to the candidates’ views and information on the difficulty:
Donald Trump on LGBTQ points
The previous president has been inconsistent on the difficulty throughout his time within the public eye, and his administration rolled again protections for LGBTQ individuals — particularly transgender people.
Within the late Nineties and early 2000s, earlier than he entered politics, Trump expressed help for home partnership legal guidelines that granted {couples} the identical advantages of married {couples} — a place that the GOP broadly opposed on the time — and sometimes confirmed private tolerance for LGBTQ points extra broadly. In a 1999 interview, the place he additionally stated he was “very pro-choice” Trump stated that “it could not disturb me” for homosexual individuals to serve within the navy.
Years later, Trump stated in 2011, amid hypothesis a couple of potential presidential bid, that he was “against homosexual marriage.” In 2015, he stated he helps “conventional marriage.”
Trump turned the primary GOP presidential nominee to say LGBTQ points in his 2016 RNC speech, pledging to guard the neighborhood within the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub capturing.
Trump selected a conservative working mate in 2016, Mike Pence, who had staunchly opposed same-sex marriage, however Trump’s personal feedback on the subject diversified.
Trump stated throughout his 2016 marketing campaign that he would “strongly contemplate” appointing Supreme Court docket justices who would overturn the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriages. Then, days after he was elected, he stated he was “superb” with same-sex marriage and recommended he would not appoint justices to the excessive court docket with the aim of overturning the ruling. His spouse, Melania Trump, known as him “the primary president to enter the White Home supporting homosexual marriage” as he sought reelection in 2020.
On transgender points, Trump stated in 2016, amid an issue over a North Carolina lavatory ban, that transgender individuals ought to “use the lavatory they really feel is acceptable.” However his administration went on to reverse a coverage that required colleges to permit transgender college students to make use of bogs that correspond with their gender identification, and his administration banned some transgender individuals from serving within the navy whereas Trump was in workplace — a coverage that President Biden reversed. Trump’s administration additionally tried to repeal well being protections for transgender individuals and sought to finish protections for transgender people in federal jail, amongst different insurance policies.
Anti-trans sentiments would go on to turn into a distinguished speaking level for Republicans on the marketing campaign path within the 2022 midterm elections. In early 2023, Trump stated he would use his powers, ought to he return to the White Home, to punish docs who present gender affirming look after minors and impose penalties for lecturers who focus on it with college students.
Within the last months of the 2024 marketing campaign, Trump and his allies leaned into anti-trans rhetoric, spending tens of millions on ads specializing in the difficulty in battleground states.
In the meantime, Trump’s working mate, Sen. JD Vance, sponsored laws in 2023 that will ban entry to gender-affirming look after minors, together with a invoice to bar the State Division from permitting the gender marker “X” on passports. The Ohio Republican additionally stated he would vote no on the Respect for Marriage Act, which supplied federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages, whereas campaigning for Senate in 2022, citing non secular liberty issues.
Kamala Harris on LGBTQ points
Harris has typically been an early adopter of pro-LGBTQ insurance policies and stances, doing so earlier than different distinguished members of her occasion.
The previous San Francisco district lawyer officiated among the nation’s first same-sex marriages in 2004, after then-mayor Gavin Newsom directed the county clerk to approve the marriages though the regulation did not but acknowledge them. The marriages have been invalidated months later. Then, when she was elected as California’s lawyer normal in 2010, Harris stated she wouldn’t defend in court docket a voter-approved measure often called Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage.
As district lawyer, Harris had prosecuted violence in opposition to LGBTQ individuals, establishing a hate crime unit to look into crimes in opposition to LGBTQ youth. As lawyer normal, she sought to finish the “panic protection” that allowed murder defendants to hunt lesser sentences in the event that they attested to being panicked by the sufferer’s sexual orientation.
Harris has been criticized by LGBTQ advocates for denying gender-affirming surgical procedures for transgender inmates when she served as lawyer normal; she stated she was sure by the Division of Corrections coverage in place on the time. She later expressed help for offering such care to inmates throughout her 2020 presidential bid. Throughout that marketing campaign, the place she ran on a extra progressive platform, Harris additionally stated she helps decriminalizing intercourse work, although she famous that it isn’t a easy difficulty.
As a senator, Harris sponsored a handful of payments geared toward addressing discrimination on the premise of sexual orientation and gender identification, together with different LGBTQ points. Harris’ document has additionally been tied to the Biden administration, which expanded Title IX protections for LGBTQ college students, though they have been blocked by the Supreme Court docket. In 2022, Mr. Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into regulation, enshrining federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.
Harris’ working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has a status as an advocate for LGBTQ rights. When Walz was a highschool instructor, he served as the college adviser who helped type his college’s first gay-straight alliance within the ’90s.
