At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Donald Trump declared himself to be a friend of the LGBT community, in spite of the party's medieval platform, which forbade same-sex relationships, endorsed "conversion therapy" and vowed to amend the U.S. Constitution so that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman.
Trump surrogate Katrina Pierson has become ubiquitous on the airwaves as the campaign's national spokesperson, for better or worse.
On Wednesday, BuzzFeed's Dominic Holden unearthed a series of tweets from 2012 that might give us a truer picture of the Trump campaign's view of LGBT Americans.
“Gay is not normal, accept that,” she said at one point.
"Further, she argued that if a same-sex couple got married in a church, it still would not be marriage," Holden wrote, "and questioned where the US Constitution addressed marriage equality."
When Holden reached out to Pierson via email, she replied, "It’s a long reach to go back to 2012 to try to create a new hit piece and call it relevant. You’ll also find that as a grassroots volunteer for multiple campaigns, it’s quite common that Twitter is a platform to promote/defend the policies and values of the candidates at the time. Many times, it’s about engaging trolls which can lead to humorous and sarcastic banter.”
Her argument is, essentially, that the views she espouses online are not her own, but those of whoever she's working for.
“I’m sure you’ll also find that the positions/values of the candidates are not necessarily a sole reflection of the individual promoting or supporting said candidate,” she contnued. “Therefore, there is nothing to square.”
