Donald Trump didn’t make any explicit anti-LGBT remarks during his speech Friday at the Values Voter Summit, but loaded his remarks with coded language on “religious liberty” to indicate support for undermining LGBT rights.
The Republican presidential nominee during his nearly 45-minute remarks said “religious liberty” for Christians would be a priority during his administration like you’ve never seen before.”
“A Trump administration, our Christian heritage will be cherished, protected, defended, like you’ve never seen before,” Trump said. “Believe me. I believe it. And you believe it. And you know it. You know it. And that includes religious liberty – remember, remember.”
In the context of the viewpoint among social conservatives, the term “religious liberty” has been considered code for enabling anti-LGBT discrimination. The idea of “religious freedom” has been used as justification for states to advance legislation that would allow for denial of rights and services to LGBT people.
Chief on Trump’s agenda for protecting “religious freedom” was a campaign pledge to repeal the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that prohibits tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
“If I become president, we are going to knock out the Johnson amendment,” Trump said.
“We are going to do that. And it’s not going to be hard. It’s not going to be hard.Describing Johnson as mix of a “powerful guy,” but also as someone who perhaps deserved opposition, Trump said Johnson enacted the law a result of Houston church “giving him a hard time.” (Johnson was actually facing opposition at the time in his Democratic primary from a non-profit, not a church.)
Trump also invoked “religious liberty” as he talked about appointment to the Supreme Court, predicting the next president would name at least two, but as means as five justices in the next administration.
The candidate pointed to his list of potential appointments from which he said he won’t stray when making appointments to the Supreme Court, calling on Hillary Clinton to produce the same list.
“We reject judges who rewrite the Constitution to impose their own person views on 300 million-plus Americans,” Trump said. “We’re not going to have that. I’ve made public a list of judges, as I said, that will guide my selection process. Hillary Clinton has refused to provide such a list. And we brought it up.”
Trump called on Clinton to make public a similar list, but said she won’t do that “because she knows the extremist judges she would pick would be rejected by the overwhelming majority of the American public.”
Among Trump’s list of potential judges are individuals with anti-LGBT backgrounds, including U.S. Circuit Judge William Pryor. In 2003, Pryor filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court urging a ruling against state sodomy bans would “logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia.”
Trump employed similar coded language in favor of “religious freedom” and support for marriage — which could be considered opposition to same-sex marriage — during a speech earlier this year in D.C. at the Faith & Freedom Forum. Last month, Trump spoke before a similar anti-LGBT crowd in Orlando just miles from a shooting at a gay nightclub that 49 dead and 53 wounded.
Also at the Values Voter Summit, Trump spoke extensively for plans to expand school choice throughout the nation, which he said would benefit African-American and Hispanic-Americans children in the inner cities. Additionally, Trump pledged to rebuild the U.S. military, repeal and replace Obamacare and defeat the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria.
Also during the speech, Trump praised the late Phyliss Schlafly, the social conservative activist who died this week and who has a long history as an anti-LGBT activist.
Touting an endorsement he received from Schlafly early on in his campaign, the candidate said he plans to attend Schlafly’s funeral this weekend in St. Louis.
“Phyllis fought very hard to the very end for a free and prosperous America,” Trump said. “She understood that, to be truly united as a country, we can’t simply turn to government or to politicians. The bedrock of our unity is the realization that we are all brothers and sisters created by the same God. Phyllis understood that.”
Making the case that Republicans lost in the 2012 election because religious conservatives didn’t show up at the polls, Trump said with their support he thinks he can win on Election Day, but otherwise that might not happen
“And if you do, we’re going to win by a lot,” Trump said. “That’s not going to even be a close election. And if you don’t, could be a very unhappy November 8th.”
Peter Montgomery, senior fellow at the People for the American Way, said Trump’s espousal of “religious liberty” at the Values Voter Summit “is just one of the many ways in which he is trying to generate enthusiasm for this important part of the Republican Party’s base.”
“And he has promised the Religious Right the Supreme Court of their dreams,” Montgomery added. “Today he said Antonin Scalia was the ‘ultimate example’ of the kind of judge he would name to the Supreme Court. That alone should be enough to put an end to the idea that Trump is some kind of friend to LGBT people.”
