For the third year in a row, President
Donald Trump has failed to officially recognize June as LGBT Pride
Month.
Last year, Trump became the first
Republican president in history to recognize LGBT Pride Month. But
the recognition came in the form of a tweet, not an official
proclamation.
According to NBC News, Trump issued
presidential actions proclaiming June as National Homeownership
Month, Great Outdoors Month, and Caribbean-American Heritage Month.
On June 1, as racial tensions increased across the nation over the
death of George Floyd, the White House recognized June 1 as Global
Coptic Day.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, criticized Trump for not
officially recognizing Pride.
“In a global pandemic and national
crisis highlighting ongoing racial violence and police brutality
across the country – violence that particularly targets Black lives
– Trump and his administration have stoked division, hate and anger
with continued attacks on LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants
and other vulnerable communities,” HRC President Alphonso David
said in a statement.
For eight years, former President
Barack Obama issued a Pride proclamation and hosted a reception at
the White House every June.
Trump, who said during the 2016
election that he would be a better “friend” to the LGBT community
than his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, has repeatedly undermined
the rights of LGBT people, including prohibiting transgender
individuals from serving openly in the military and asserting in
legal briefs that LGBT people are not covered under existing civil
rights laws. Trump
has also signaled his opposition to the Equality Act, a federal
bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation
and gender identity.
Last month, the Trump administration
asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow religiously-affiliated adoption
agencies to discriminate against LGBT families.
(Related: In
Supreme Court filing, Trump admin says adoption agencies can reject
LGBT families.)