Are we all wrong – is Donald Trump the most queer-friendly president ever? At least that is what the former US ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, claimed this week. And, of course, Trump himself. Reason for this: Joe Biden brought the queer community’s struggle for votes into the focus of the US election campaign – with the appointment of Kamala Harris as his vice candidate. Why the goodwill of the community is so hard-fought:

Such a US election campaign can be quite sometimes heated, passionate and dirty. Since Joe Biden chose declared LGBTIQ+ ally Kamala Harris as his campaign partner and future vice president, the U.S. election campaign has picked up considerable momentum in the Corona year.

Thursday, the Log Cabin Republicans, the largest group of conservative LGBTIQs in America, shared a video. Richard Grenell, who was U.S. Ambassador to Berlin from 2018 to 2020 and the first of very few openly queer people in the Trump administration, takes up the queer lance for his boss. Donald Trump is “the most gay-friendly president in American history,” Grenell said.

The video is above all a smear campaign against Trump challenger Joe Biden (77), who had come under criticism in queer circles for having voted in the past in favor of defending marriage as a union solely between a man and a woman and the controversial “Don’t ask, don’t tell” military clause. In 1993, however, Biden is said to have given his vote for its abolition.

“President Trump has done more to promote gay and lesbian rights in three years than Joe Biden has done in over 40 years in Washington.

Richard Grenell owes concrete examples of the favors Trump has done for the queer community. The only thing Grenell cites is his own appointment as director of the National Secret Service – and an allegedly “historic campaign” to decriminalise homosexuality around the world. Apart from a press conference, however, this campaign does not seem to exist, although it is repeatedly led by queer Trump supporters (we reported).

On the contrary: Opponents often accuse Trump of political instrumentalisation of Iran’s queer hostility – a declared favorite opponent of the current government, in which, however, the human rights of queer people are trampled underfoot in a similar way as in Saudi Arabia – an ally of Trump’s, which Trump or his subordinates never uttered a word of criticism against.

Numerous attacks on the community by Trump’s government

The Trump Accountability Project of the queer organization GLAAD counted 168 direct attacks by Donald Trump on the queer community during his tenure. That is almost one attack per week. Some examples:

Trump’s government banned transgender people from military service, deleted queer language and queer mentions of government websites, wanted to ban health protection measures for transgender people, wanted to continue to promote the reversal of marriage equality and failed to consider Pride Month in any official form – apart from an embarrassing Twitter post by the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump (we reported).

So what is the point of this video of Grenell? He explains it himself at the end:

“Gays don’t have to vote democratically because Donald Trump is the most gay-friendly president in American history.”

Republicans fear for the last queer votes they were sure of since Joe Biden brought on board Kamala Harris, an ally his campaign managers might expect to silence the Democrat’s queer critics.

What makes Kamala Harris a queer ally?

Joe Biden is also fighting for queer votes – according to polls, the favorite of the queer community was his Democratic pre-election opponent Bernie Sanders. In his election campaign, Biden then also published a strategic plan for LGBTIQ+ equality (we reported). With his appointment of Kamala Harris, the former Attorney General of California, he is bringing an important ally on board. She is black, she is a woman – she would be the first vice president in US history with these attributes – and she is a well-known supporter of the queer community.

Joe Biden emphasised this in his first joint campaign speech this week in Delaware. He praised the former Attorney General of California and her commitment to the equality of marriage. Both, in 2004 when the marriage was briefly opened in California, and in 2013, she was one of the first officials to perform the marriage ceremonies. In her biography “The Truths We Hold” she tells the story:

“I was on my way to the airport to catch a flight to Los Angeles, but I decided to pass by San Francisco City Hall before I left. There were throngs of people lined up around the block waiting to get in. They were counting down the minutes before a government would finally recognise their right to marry whomever they loved. The joy and anticipation was palpable. Some of them had been waiting decades. I got out of my car and walked up the steps of City Hall where I bumped into a city official. ‘Kamala, come and help us,’ she said, a glowing smile on her face. ‘We need more people to perform the marriages.'”

She had been happy to be there, Harris said. She was quickly sworn in along with numerous city officials – so that as many same-sex couples as possible could be married at the same time.

“We stood together performing marriages in the hallway, crowded into every nook and cranny of City Hall. There was all this wonderful excitement building as we welcomed the throngs of loving couples one by one, to be married then and there. It was unlike anything I had ever been a part of before, and it was beautiful.”

Unfortunately, the struggle for the equality of marriage in California was not over – the marriages were annulled. In 2008, the California Supreme Court again opened the marriage for everyone with a ruling – this time the queer-hostile bill Proposition 8 destroyed the dream again. Harris found herself at the center of the fight in 2010 when she ran for California Attorney General. She remembers in her memoirs:

“It quickly became a central issue in the campaign… I made clear that I had no intention of spending a penny of the attorney general’s offices resources defending Prop 8. My opponent took the other view, a sharp distinction between us.”

Sadly, even with her victory as Attorney General, the battle for love in California was not over, but Harris’ commitment to marriage equality and the queer community continued. When the case went to the Supreme Court in 2013, Harris attended the trial to support the community. She tells:

“As I left the Supreme Court, there were hundreds of people gathered, waving rainbow flags holding signs, waiting anxiously for justice. It made me smile. They were why I had become a lawyer in the first place. It was in the courtroom, I believed, that you could translate that passion into action, and precedent and law.”

Pete Buttigieg thanks Biden for making his marriage possible

The openly gay politician Pete Buttigieg also actively participated in Joe Biden’s election campaign this week and again expressed his support for the Democrat. At the Democratic National Convention he thanked the presidential candidate for his commitment to queer rights. The ring on his finger reflected how much this country could change, said Buttigieg, who married his husband Chasten in 2018.

“Love makes my marriage real, but political courage made it possible — including that of Joe Biden, who stepped out ahead of even this party when he said that marriage equality should be the law of the land.”

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