Biden Hosts Pride Month Picnic at White House

metroweekly.com:

The Hill.“Whether you’re organizing a Pride parade, running a small business, or just trying to focus at school, you should have — you shouldn’t have to deal with bomb threats, harassment, and violent attacks,” Biden said of the administration’s new initiatives.He also touted past progress on LGBTQ rights, including reversing the ban on transgender service members in the U.S.

Armed Forces; executive orders signed by Biden ensuring protections for housing, employment, health care, and education; efforts to combat conversion therapy; national efforts to address public health crises, including the HIV epidemic and the outbreak of monkeypox; the FDA’s relaxing of restrictions on gay and bisexual male blood donors; and the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would ensure same-sex marriages are recognized as valid, even in the case of a reversal of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing marriage equality.Biden noted that more has to be done to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination and urged Congress to pass the Equality Act.

The sweeping civil rights law would prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in various aspects of life. “For all the progress we’ve made, we know challenges still remain,” Biden said. “When a person can be married in the morning but thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still very wrong in America.

That’s why the Congress must pass and send me the Equality Act.”Among those in attendance at the White House Pride event were Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S.