Popular vote loser Donald Trump’s first 100 days have been marred by multiple legislative failures, broken campaign promises, and record-low approval numbers. The latter is one major reason why writer and activist Michelangelo Signorile believes Trump’s “second 100 days will be even worse,” especially when it comes to LGBTQ equality:
Trump is continuing to plummet in approval ratings and he needs his base to back him ― and to back the GOP ― more than ever if he has any hopes of re-election and of keeping Congress in the hands of the GOP in 2018 and beyond. He just barely made it in 2016, and any softening of any part of his base will spell doom. The anti-LGBTQ religious right turned out for Trump in numbers as great or greater than every previous recent Republican presidential candidate.
Christian right activists are already demanding much more. They were hoping a religious liberty executive order ― which would allow for widespread discrimination against LGBT people ― would have been issued already, and were disappointed when the Trump administration early on said a leaked draft of it wasn’t coming soon.
But Trump transition official Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow at the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, told me in February it was indeed coming, and was being fine-tuned to withstand a legal challenge. Last week USA Today reported that a group of 51 GOP legislators in the House sent a letter to the White House asking for the order to be signed:
“[We] request that you sign the draft executive order on religious liberty, as reported by numerous outlets on February 2, 2017, in order to protect millions of Americans whose religious freedom has been attacked or threatened over the last eight years.”
These are anti-LGBTQ legislators who backed Trump and who represent the armies of the Christian right. They’re pressuring him to move ahead with the anti-LGBTQ agenda he promised. Though the media downplayed it, Trump courted these people at events and through their media during the campaign, promising everything from “protecting” religious liberty to getting the Obergefell marriage equality ruling overturned.
Trump’s cabinet members and appointees already make up the most homophobic administration in recent history, with Jeff Sessions—who in the past used his power to deny justice to LGBTQ hate crimes victims—now charged with leading the Justice Department. You’d think it would already be a homophobe’s dream come true, but as Signorile writes, “the Christian right isn’t satisfied with what they see as the crumbs Trump has given them in the first 100 days. They’re demanding much, much more, and Trump, like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of whom courted the Christian right and believed they needed evangelical voters for re-election, will feel compelled to deliver.”
Stay vigilant.