First lady Jill Biden slams attacks on LGBTQ+ rights by ‘MAGA extremists’ at Human Rights Campaign dinner
First lady Jill Biden didn’t hold back when giving a speech at LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign’s Los Angeles fundraising dinner on Saturday (23 March).
Dr. Jill Biden used her time at the podium to slam right-wing, fear-mongering attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, saying: āJust last night we had to fend off more than 50 anti-gay amendments that Republicans tried to force into the government funding bill.
“These were extreme measures aimed directly at this community, measures that would have limited health care, eroded protection for same sex couples and more.ā
She added: āAnd they serve only one purpose: to spread fear.”
The First Lady also highlighted the importance of reelecting her husband in November, saying that āMAGA extremistsā are trying to āunwind all the progress weāve madeā on LGBTQ+ rights and equality.
āThanks to our president, marriage equality is now a law, he ended the ban on bisexual and gay men donating blood, he made it possible for trans Americans to serve openly and honourably in the military and heās standing firmly against conversion therapy,ā she said.
This isn’t the first time that Dr. Jill Biden has come out swinging for LGBTQ+ rights.
In October 2023, she condemned the recent raft of book bans that had taken place in the US. Book-banning targeting LGBTQ+ authors and titles has been found to have been rising in the US, with the American Library Association (ALA) documenting 1,269 attempts to censor or ban 2,571 titles in 2022.
At LGBTQ+ charity PFLAG’s annual convention, Dr. Jill Biden stated āin America, we donāt ban books.ā
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