BY BTL STAFF
The moment Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th U.S. president today, the LGBT, climate change, health care, and civil liberties pages disappeared from the website of the brand new Trump White House. As did the HIV/AIDS strategy page and disabilities page.
Motherboard, VICE's website focusing on science and technology, reported that the changes occurred at noon, when the Obama administration turned over the official White House website, whitehouse.gov, to the Trump team.
The White House's official LGBT page, WhiteHouse.gov/LGBT, now either redirects to a splash page encouraging visitors to sign up for updates from President Trump, or displays as a broken link stating: "The requested page '/lgbt' could not be found."
GLAAD, the LGBTQ media advocacy organization, also noted that a search for "LGBT" now turns up no results on the new White House website.
The page on civil rights was replaced with a page titled "Standing Up For Our Law Enforcement Community" – which, the Daily Beast noted, falsely claims that: "In our nation's capital, killings have risen by 50 percent." Homicides in Washington, D.C., dropped by 17 percent from 2016 to 2015, the Chicago Tribune reported.
In addition to removing the page formerly dedicated to the issue of climate change, http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/climate-change, Trump's White House has also deleted all specific mentions of "climate change" and "global warming," reported Motherboard. Trump's 'America First' Energy Plan was posted on the website instead and it calls for eliminating regulations, including President Barack Obama's "Climate Action Plan" combatting the causes of global warming.
Trump told CBS's "60 Minutes" in November that he's "fine" with same-sex marriage and doesn't think the Supreme Court needs to revisit the issue. Throughout his campaign, he also painted himself as a "friend" of the LGBT community.
Vice President Pence is a devout evangelical Christian, who as governor of Indiana signed a religious freedom bill that critics claimed allowed for LGBT discrimination.
While reports say that the pages were removed for technical reasons and that the Trump White House site is fully up with its policy positions, ACLU of Michigan LGBT Staff Attorney Jay Kaplan said, "We'll have to see if the LGBT and climate changes pages return. Given many of his cabinet nominees' positions on LGBT rights this does not look promising. I'm also very concerned about Trump's executive order on the Affordable Care Act, which broadly allows states to opt out of regulations governing the Act, including the non-discrimination regulations. This could permit insurers to continue their blanket exclusions on coverage for transgender-related transition care, as well as to permit Michigan to continue its Medicaid exclusion on paying for trans-related hormone therapy. It could also allow faith based hospitals and health care providers to refuse to provide medical services to LGBT people because of religious beliefs."
Stay tuned to BTL online for more information regarding these changes and what it means for the LGBT community.
LGBT Rights Page Gone from White House Website
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