Melania Trump claimed Donald ‘was the first’ to support equal marriage. His own words quickly proved her wrong
Donald Trump sits and his wife Melania Trump. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Melania Trump mistakenly tried to claim that her husband is the “first president to enter the White House supporting gay marriage” and was swiftly proven wrong.
A viral Twitter video used Donald Trump’s own words to shoot down Melania’s claim her husband isn’t anti-gay.
Trump in no way “entered the White House supporting gay marriage”, as Melania misleadingly claimed in a video for the Log Cabin Republicans posted Thursday (October 29).
In fact, he openly strived to challenge it before and during his 2016 election campaign.
https://twitter.com/MrMatthewTodd/status/1323633892876845058
As the video highlighted, Trump made numerous comments that he was “not in favour”, “against” and did “not support gay marriage” across the last 16 years, including while he was running for president.
He only said he was “fine” with same-sex marriage after taking the White House.
For at least 16 years, Donald Trump opposed marriage equality.
Donald Trump held the view that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman since at least 2000 and as recently as 2015, when he said that he personally supported “traditional marriage”.
“I just don’t feel good about it,” he told Fox News at the time.
“I don’t feel right about it. I’m against it and I take a lot of heat because I come from New York.
“You know, for New York, it’s like, how can you be against gay marriage? But I’m opposed to gay marriage.”
Donald Trump and Melania Trump in 2000. (David LEFRANC/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Trump shrugged off the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on marriage equality, reacting with almost glib disapproval.
“I would have preferred states, you know, making the decision,” he said in 2015, “but they [the Supreme Court] made the decision.
“So, at a certain point, you have to be realistic about it.”
In January 2016 he advocated for peeling back the verdict by appointing conservative Supreme Court justices who would “maybe could change things” and let states decide instead – a chilling statement, considering the final act of his first term: appointing Amy Coney Barrett to the bench.
After becoming president, Trump sought to distance himself from the regular Republican standard-bearers of social conservatism by stressing that he’s “fine” with marriage equality and that the courts had “settled” the matter.
The president’s supporters paint him an ally. His policies say otherwise.
The last four years of the Trump administration have been pockmarked by relentless attacks against LGBT+ lives.
Trans people especially have born the brunt of Trump’s attacks, with the community’s rights throttled across several branches of the federal government.
Supporters hold up an LGBT+ Pride flag for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. (George Frey/Getty Images
A pointless Department of Defence ban on trans troops, a rollback of healthcare protections by the Department of Health and Human Services, a proposal to allow homeless shelters to deny trans people access to single-sex shelters by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and efforts by the Education Department to both block trans students from using the bathroom which aligns with their gender, and to ban trans girls from joining female track teams in Connecticut high schools.
With increasing temerity, allies of the president have sought to rewrite the last four years. But as the internet proved today, the queer community will never forget the truth: that Donald Trump is no friend of theirs.
