According to inside sources, First Lady Melania Trump wanted to light up the White House in rainbow colors to honor Pride month this year, but was shot down by Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
In fact, Meadows so adamantly opposes LGBTQ equality, Donald Trump didn’t acknowledge the month as he did in 2019.
Related: Michelle Obama snuck out of the White House to celebrate marriage equality with crowd outside gates
The Washington Blade reports that Meadows made it a mission to ensure that the administration didn’t recognize Pride month.
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The White House was last lit in rainbow colors during the Obama administration following the Supreme Court’s decision that legalized same-sex marriages nationwide. The Trump administration has made it a priority to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and try to claw back civil rights gains.
Trump’s campaign launched a desperate and widely ridiculed last-minute bid to woo queer voters, but LGBTQ people voted overwhelmingly for Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. Melania Trump filmed a short video for the Log Cabin Republicans claiming she was “shocked to discover” that people consider “my husband as anti-gay or against equality.”
Meadows, a former member of Congress, was one of the most consistent opponents of LGBTQ rights on the Hill.
He was particularly vocal about same-sex marriage, hyperbolically claiming in a 2013 interview that a Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality would be a “Constitutional crisis.”
“It’s a huge invasion into state’s rights and the state definition of marriage, whether you call it traditional or natural marriage,” Meadows said. “I call it marriage, you know, it’s between one man and one woman, period.”
After the ruling was announced, the White House lit up in solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Former First Lady Michelle Obama snuck outside of the presidential residence to watch celebrants gather outside the White House and look at the display herself.
