On February 20, many students at San Luis Obispo High School were met with strange news. The American Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell announced that the Trump administration was going to push to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. While this is good news, it seems highly out of character for the members of Trump’s administration; all of whom do not seem the types to stand up for LGBTQ rights. Why would the administration suddenly choose to support a group that seems to stand against some of their members’ beliefs?
One such member is Vice President Mike Pence, a deeply conservative evangelical politician. Before being Trump’s running mate, Pence was a very open, very adamant, supporter of gay conversion therapy. He still is largely connected to this past advocacy, as it is still very easy to trace back to filmed speeches at events where he readily supports this process.
When Pence was the governor of Indiana, he signed a religious freedom bill that allowed for unjust treatment of LGBTQ people. This bill allowed discrimination against LGBTQ people on the basis of religion, an ability homophobes readily used to further persecute gays in their communities.
However, according to NBC News, Pence has also come out in favor of this movement; but why would he do something like that?
“As positive as I’d like to be, I don’t think that they’re doing something like this out of nowhere. With such a large part of Trump’s administration having a history of homophobia, I think they are doing this to take attention off something else,” said freshman Alex Caprau.
The Trump administration has barely done anything relating to LGBTQ rights, unlike their predecessors who made big strides in the level of government support. Under the previous President of the United States Barak Obama, big changes happened both domestically and overseas. The Trump administration is now proposing to do their own LGBTQ advocacy overseas, but why?
“I’d like to think that they’re realizing what they have been doing in the past is no longer working, that they are moving towards making the world better so we can all benefit,” said freshman Carmen Davila.
The members of Trump’s administration have never been especially keen on being politically correct, and many have questionable pasts relating to LGBTQ rights. The administration has picked fights with many different demographics, minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community. Why do they care about being politically correct now?
“Homosexuality is a somewhat normal thing in the US, but in 72 other nations, it is criminalized. Eight of those nations consider it punishable by death,” said freshman Elliot Graham. “There are a lot of LGBTQ students at SLOHS. If it was punishable by death in the U.S. a considerable amount of students would be missing. This move is very important to people in other countries, I don’t know why it’s happening, but I’m honestly just glad we’re being progressive.”
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