A new digital ad buy from the Human Rights Campaign takes President Trump to task for his response to the coronavirus epidemic and blames him for the economic fallout that has resulted in empty gay bars where LGBTQ people and marginalized communities once met to express themselves, the Washington Blade has learned exclusively.
The black-and-white ad, titled “The Empty Table,” opens with images of a gay bar with overturned bar stools, vacant rooms and a sign saying “Black Trans Lives Matter.” (The empty venue is a real gay bar, Trade, a popular destination in D.C, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson said.) “This is a queer bar,” the narrator says. “It’s barely open.