Biden hosts biggest-ever Pride month event at the White House
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Saturday welcomed more than 1,000 guests to the largest Pride month celebration ever hosted at the White House. “Happy Pride Month,” the president said from a stage on the South Lawn. “Happy Pride year,” he added, “happy Pride life.” The Biden-Harris administration has more openly-LGBTQ people working at every level of government than ever before, Biden noted, and “we’re doing everything we can to advance equality for the LGBTQ community.” “As commander-in-chief, I was proud to reverse the ban on transgender Americans serving in the United States military.
I signed historic executive orders extending civil rights protections for housing, employment, health care, education and the justice system.” “We’re combatting the dangerous and cruel practice of conversation therapy and launching a new national strategy to end the HIV epidemic by 2030, working with communities to treat and contain the mpox outbreak, and ending the disgraceful practice of banning gay and bisexual men from donating blood.” Biden said the administration is making LGBTQ equality around the world a top priority, such as by reviewing “our engagement with Uganda following its anti-gay law, the most extreme in the world.” “Last December, we felt such pride here on the South Lawn when I signed the historic Respect for Marriage Act, which protects the marriages of same-sex and interracial couples.” Despite this progress, the president said, “real challenges still remain.” For instance, he said, “When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of the restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still very wrong in America.
