Speaking at the United Nations on
Tuesday, President Donald Trump said that the United States stands in
solidarity with LGBT people being persecuted in nations that prohibit
same-sex relations.
“My administration is working with
other nations to stop criminalizing of homosexuality,” Trump told
the audience. “And we stand in solidarity with LGBT people who live
in countries that punish, jail, and execute people based upon sexual
orientation.”
The speech marked a first for the
president, who had previously only acknowledged the initiative on
Twitter.
The effort, announced in February
following a reported execution of a gay man in Iran, is being helmed
by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-ranking
openly gay person in the Trump administration.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd
Deere told the
Washington
Blade that the initiative was included in the speech because
“it was an opportunity to deliver an important message to world
leaders and a global audience that the U.S. will not stand for the
criminalizing of homosexuality.”
Same-sex relations are outlawed in over
70 nations.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, pointed to Trump's domestic
record on LGBT rights in criticizing his comments.
“Trump has no credibility to speak
about LGBTQ human rights abroad when he has done so much to damage
them here at home, from banning trans people from the military to
proposing that medical providers can deny care to LGBTQ patients and
permitting federal contractors to fire employees for being LGBTQ,”
David Stacy, government affairs director at HRC, said in a statement.