Kamala Harris says GOP’s anti-LGBTQ+ attacks are making Americans feel unsafe

Vice President Kamala Harris discussed attacks against the LGBTQ+ community while speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon.

During her discussion, the NABJ interviewers asked Harris if she felt safe with Secret Service protection following the two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump. She replied, “I do,” and added, “but you can go back to Ohio — not everybody has Secret Service,” a reference to the bombing threats and violence that have occurred in the city of Springfield following lies repeated by Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) about Haitian immigrants eating local pets and spreading disease.

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“It’s not what your sexual preference is, it’s what your intellectual capacity is and what your courage is,” the president said.

“And there are far too many people in our country who are not feeling safe,” she added. “I mean, I look at Project 2025, and, you know, the ‘Don’t say gay’ laws coming out of Florida, and members of the LGBTQ+ community don’t feel safe right now. Immigrants or people with an immigrant background don’t feel safe right now. Women don’t feel safe right now.”

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“Yes, I feel safe,” she continued. “I have Secret Service protection, but that doesn’t change my perspective on the importance of fighting for the safety of everybody in our country and doing everything we can to, again, lift people up and not beat people down so they feel alone and made to feel small and not a part of it or us.”

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Harris has repeatedly linked Trump to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump presidency, which would replace nonpartisan federal workers with Trump loyalists and roll back civil rights protections for pregnant people, workers, and LGBTQ+ people. While Trump has repeatedly disavowed any knowledge of or involvement with Project 2025, over 140 of his former staffers helped write it and many of its provisions are part of his platform.

While Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law forbids any classroom instruction on LGBTQ+ issues in public schools, congressional Republicans have introduced a national “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would go far beyond Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law. The bill, the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” would cut federal funding to libraries, school districts, hospitals, government entities, or other organizations for “hosting or promoting any program, event, or literature involving sexually-oriented material,” including “any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related topics.”

A 2023 survey found that anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, including attacks on gender-affirming care, is making 66% of queer youth more anxious and suicidal.

The 2024 Democratic National Platform pledges to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal anti-discrimination laws. The platform also pledges to prohibit anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination among federal government contractors, to ensure that federally-funded senior programs are LGBTQ+-inclusive, to ban conversion therapy for queer youth, to end violence against transgender Americans, and to prioritize the investigation of hate crimes against trans and non-binary people.

Comparatively. the Republican National Platform pledges to cut federal funding to schools with “push” “radical gender ideology” and “sexual content” onto children, to ban transgender athletes from playing competitive sports, to end all federal funding of gender-affirming surgery, to oppose Title IX and Title VII protections for trans students and employees, and to provide legal protections for Christians who discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.

When Trump spoke with the NABJ, he claimed to be the best president of all time for Black people, even better than Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed civil rights protections outlawing racial discrimination. Trump also told the NABJ that Harris didn’t always identify as Black, a lie that ignores her biracial Black and Indian ethnicity.

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