Not today, Satan.
The Trump administration has announced the formation of a new division of the Office of Civil Rights that will allow discrimination against LGBTQ people.
Under the new outlines, healthcare providers will legally be able to deny medical care to LGBTQ and pregnant women based on their religious beliefs.
The head of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights, Roger Severino, has a history of actively opposing equal rights for minorities.
Essentially, the office will provide support for far right religious organisations who are against LGBTQ equality and abortion.
“President Trump’s Health and Human Services Department is playing with people’s lives in their latest attempt to upend LGBTQ rights,” said Jerame Davis, Executive Director of Pride At Work.
“This brand of so-called ‘religious freedom’ is a mockery of the fundamental religious protections provided by our Constitution. It is not ‘freedom’ of religion to use your faith as a weapon to harm others.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, said: “Any healthcare worker who has moral objections to providing medically necessary care to an entire vulnerable population is in the wrong line of work.”
“Denying a transgender person – or any person – life saving care if they walk into an emergency room is far from a moral act, it is unjust and dangerous.
Michael Vadon via Flickr
“Trump, Pence, and Trump’s appointees have tried time and again to establish blatantly bigoted policies that harm transgender and gender non-conforming Americans, and history will neither forget nor forgive this Administration’s attacks on its own people.”
DNC Director of LGBTQ Media, Lucas Acosta, added: “It wasn’t enough to try to strip transgender Americans of their right to serve, roll back access to birth control, and attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. Now Trump, Pence, and their Republican cronies want to allow health care workers to discriminate and rip away access to medical care.”
This latest move comes at the same time Donald Trump claims that he supports gay equality.
In a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans – the country’s oldest and largest group of LGBTQ conservatives – he wrote that he will “reaffirm our commitment” to the “undeniable truth” that we are all equal.
“We are a Nation founded on the undeniable truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We are equal under the law. And we are all equal under our Constitution,” the letter stated.
“No matter the colour of our skin or our sexual orientation, we all live under the same laws, salute the same great American flag, and are made in the image of the same Almighty God.
“As we write the next great chapter of our Nation, we reaffirm our commitment to these fundamental truths and will work to ensure that all Americans live in a country where they feel safe and where their opportunities are limitless.”
Related: Donald Trump’s administration banned from using the word ‘transgender’
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