The year was 2000.
Real estate mogul Donald J. Trump, in an interview with The Advocate, said “it’s only fair” that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 be amended to include gay people.
“I like the idea of amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation,” Trump told the publication. “It would be simple. It would be straightforward. We don’t need to rewrite the laws currently on the books, although I do think we need to address hate-crimes legislation. But amending the Civil Rights Act would grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans — it’s only fair.”
Fast forward to 2019.
Real estate mogul Donald J. Trump is President Donald Trump.
The House of Representatives is set to vote on the Equality Act on Friday, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation.
And President Donald Trump opposes the Equality Act.
As Chris Johnson at The Washington Blade exclusively reports, President Trump indeed has come out against the Equality Act – legislation that would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Equality Act would go further, also amending the 1968 Fair Housing Act to protect LGBTQ people in areas such as housing, credit, employment, education, jury service, and public accommodations.
A senior Trump administration official has told Johnson that the Trump administration “absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all.”
That senior Trump official, adds, “however, this bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.”
Parental and conscience rights likely refer to harmful “ex-gay,” “reparative,” or “conversion” therapy, which Trump’s evangelical base supports.
Those parental and conscience rights also likely refer to special rights for Christians to be able to legally refuse service to LGBT people and same-sex couples, as America has seen in cases involving Christian bakers, florists, photographers, and county clerks, among others.
In explaining details of the Equality Act, Johnson notes: “In addition to transgender inclusion, the bill seeks to update federal law to include sex in the list of protected classes in public accommodation and expands the definition of public accommodations to include retail stores, banks, transportation services and health care services. Further, the Equality Act would establish that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — a 1994 law aimed at protecting religious liberty — can’t be used to enable anti-LGBT discrimination.”
All of which means that as long as Donald Trump is President there will be no legal equality for LGBTQ people.
This article has been expanded to include more details about the Equality Act.