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In The South

US campaign group reacts to Trump’s first State of the Union address

Besi Besemar January 31, 2018

President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address to a joint session of the United States Congress on the evening of January 30, 2017.

Heavily contested topics were covered in President Trump’s speech including immigration, tax reform, and religious freedom.

However President Trump did not mention ‘LGBT’ or commit to safeguarding the protections and civil rights of LGBT+ people in his speech.

Jessica Stern
Jessica Stern

Commenting on President Trump’s remarks, Jessica Stern, Executive Director of OutRight Action International, said: “OutRight is very proud to be the oldest international LGBTI rights organisation in the United States. And we are very clear how we achieved 28 years of impact. Two-thirds of our staff in the US is an immigrant or child of immigrants. Our staff around the world are based in the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, the U.K., and St. Lucia. This rich combination of immigrants to the US and global talent gives OutRight the resources to be effective.

“And so, when we listened to last night’s State of the Union, we rejected the coded language and explicit attacks on immigrants or anyone not American. We heard a right-wing fantasy where manufacturing and automobiles rule, where military force makes Americans safer, and where the Constitution is frozen in time. This is Trump’s moral panic, and we reject his world view.

“As a leading American organisation, we declare our love of immigrants and people who are not American. We love all workers not just veterans. We love healthcare. We love equal rights and non-discrimination, not coded “religious freedom.” We love modern interpretations of the US Constitution. We love the visa lottery. We love all families, not just the nuclear family. We call for the radical principle of love to be the new state of the union.”

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