Delaware’s LGBTQ community is gearing up for a possible fight to uphold their civil rights under a Trump/Pence administration.
Vice President elect Mike Pence - whose positions on LGBTQ rights have drawn criticism from a number of quarters - faced some boos while attending the popular Broadway show Hamilton recently.
The cast also addressed him directly - asking the new administration go work on behalf of all Americans.
Equality Delaware president Lisa Goodman called President elect Donald Trump’s demands for an apology afterwards hypocritical.
“The fact that the President-elect who has reviled the idea of safe spaces and over sensitive people should be calling for Broadway to be a safe space for a homophobe is pretty ironic," Goodman said.
Pence has been vocal about marriage equality not being the law of the land, but Goodman said rolling back the federal ruling making it so would be difficult.
Pence has also supported conversion therapy, which Goodman said has been widely rejected by medical professionals.
She added Delawareans in their 20s and 30s who came out to friends and relatives during the Obama administration feel vulnerable and anxious about what a Trump administration could mean for them.
“It is very frightening to think that the battles you had fought and won – or at least were well on the way to securing – could be rolled back so quickly," Goodman said.
Goodman said there’s concern a federal law could be passed overruling state laws like Delaware’s anti-discrimination law that was passed in 2013, but noted it would be a long road to get there and wouldn't happen without a hard and bitter fight.
She also doesn’t want to see Trump's campaign rhetoric normalized.
“We have always counted on our politicians to speak to the better angels of our nature – to quote a very famous Republican president Lincoln, not to speak to the worst angels of our nature," Goodman said.
Right now, Goodman said the LGBTQ community is settling down and preparing to act if necessary to keep their rights protected.
