Trump’s Attorney General pick William Barr has horrifying anti-LGBT record
Attorney General nominee William Barr
William Barr, President Trump’s nominee to replace the ousted Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General, has an extensive anti-LGBT record.
On December 7, Trump announced he had picked William Barr to head the Department of Justice and crucially claim responsibility to oversee the Mueller investigation.
Barr previously served as US Attorney General under George H W Bush from 1991 to 1993, during the aftermath of the Iran-Contra scandal.
However LGBT+ activists have warned that Barr has a troubling record on equality. If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, activists fear Barr will continue the anti-LGBT policy stances pursued by Sessions within the DOJ.
William Barr has a poor LGBT rights record
In October 2017, Barr penned an article for The Catholic Lawyer in which he decried the attention shown to “the homosexual movement” and appeared to express opposition to LGBT+ anti-discrimination laws.
In the piece, Barr attacked the use of “District of Columbia law to compel Georgetown University to treat homosexual activist groups like any other student group.”
Attorney General nominee William Barr, pictured in an official photo during the George H.W. Bush administration
Barr wrote: “Secularists use law as a weapon [by passing] laws that affirmatively promote the moral relativist viewpoint.”
Bringing up several examples, he added: “This kind of law declares, in effect, that people, either individually or collectively, may not make moral distinctions or say that certain conduct is good but another is bad.”
Elsewhere in the same article, Barr laments the lack of Catholic influence in society, saying: “It is no accident that the homosexual movement, at one or two percent of the population, gets treated with such solicitude while the Catholic population, which is over a quarter of the country, is given the back of the hand.
“How has that come to be? We need to go back to basics and reassemble the flock.”
Barr has also blamed the “sexual revolution” for the moral decline of the US.
“There’s little doubt that William Barr would continue the Trump Administration’s objective of erasing LGBTQ Americans from the fabric of this nation.”
— Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD
He also described the separation of church and state in public institutions, the foundation of US society, as an as an “extremist notions” and an “moral lobotomy.”
LGBT activists: William Barr would continue to harm LGBT Americans
Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement to PinkNews: “William Barr, who has wrongfully suggested that LGBTQ people – not Trump and his destructive policies – have harmed the United States, is the latest in a long line of replacements who President Trump has appointed to his Cabinet who are just as anti-LGBTQ as their predecessors.
“If confirmed, there’s little doubt that William Barr would continue the Trump Administration’s objective of erasing LGBTQ Americans from the fabric of this nation.”
Faiz Shakir, American Civil Liberties Union national political director, said: “William Barr’s record suggests that he will follow Jeff Sessions’ legacy of hostility to civil rights and civil liberties.
“If confirmed, Trump will have a partner in one of the most powerful roles of the administration, and someone who defended the president’s decision to fire James Comey.
“The Senate must press Barr to adhere to the obligation of the Justice Department to defend the rights of all – immigrants, women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Barr must commit to defending the rule of law and civil rights, not serving as a political arm of Trump’s anti-constitutional agenda.”
