佛罗里达州州长。罗恩·德桑蒂斯上周的总统竞选之后共和党对手唐纳德·特朗普感谢这位前总统过去对LGBTQ群体的支持——尽管这段视频也引起了病毒式的反弹。
周五的德桑蒂斯竞选分享了一个视频，现已被观看超过1800万次，该网站将特朗普称为“比任何其他共和党人都更多庆祝”骄傲月的政治家，并批评他在2016年共和党全国代表大会上说他将尽一切努力“保护我们的LGBTQ公民。”(这些言论是在佛罗里达州同性恋夜总会Pulse发生大规模枪击事件后不久发表的，在那次事件中，一名枪手杀害了49人。)
竞选视频最初是由另一个帐户创建的，具有讽刺和戏剧性的语气，混合了新闻镜头，标题和流行文化的剪辑。它将特朗普的其他声明整合在一起，比如他曾说他对凯特琳·詹娜使用她选择的任何浴室都没意见，他说变性女性可以参加他的选美比赛，还有一张他举着彩虹LGBTQ旗帜的照片和一条庆祝骄傲的推特。
德桑蒂斯的竞选活动将特朗普的记录与他自己的记录进行了对比。他们分享的视频吹捧州长的支持对LGBTQ人群有争议的限制尤其是那些变性者，包括禁止对变性青年进行性别确认的医疗服务。
作为总统，特朗普也支持主要的跨性别限制，如禁止公开跨性别者参军。
德桑蒂斯的视频赞许地引用了他的记录，称其为“严酷的”和“威胁跨性别生存的”
2023年6月30日，共和党总统候选人佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯在费城举行的自由母亲会议上发言。
马特·洛克/美联社
虽然这些法律受到了佛罗里达州保守派的欢迎，但也遭到了严厉的批评。
在倡导者的强烈抗议中，州长经常辩称，这些举措是对他所谓的不适当的LGBTQ问题日益成为主流的回应。“随着世界变得疯狂，佛罗里达代表着理智的避难所和正常的城堡，”他今年早些时候说。
新的德桑蒂斯视频很快引起了LGBTQ社区的两党批评。
前特朗普顾问、同性恋大使理查德·格雷内尔(Richard Grenell)在博客上写道推特该视频“不可否认地仇视同性恋”
木屋共和党人，一个LGBTQ保守派团体，叫做视频“分裂”和“绝望”
该组织在推特上写道:“保守派明白我们需要保护我们的孩子，维护女性的运动，捍卫女性的空间，加强父母的权利，但罗恩·德桑蒂斯的极端言论刚刚进入了仇视同性恋的领域。”德桑蒂斯的言论将会失去在全国关键竞选中来之不易的成果。这种旧的策略在过去已经尝试过了，但失败了——一次又一次。"
交通部长皮特·布蒂吉格是民主党人，也是同性恋，在CNN上被问到对视频做出回应。
Buttigieg说:“我会小心选择我的措辞，部分原因是我以秘书的身份出现，所以我不能谈论竞选活动。”“我会把试图证明你的男子气概的奇怪想法放在一边，放上一段视频，把你的图像拼接在涂满油的赤膊健美运动员之间，直接进入一个更大的问题，每当我在政策空间看到这种东西时，我都会想到这个问题，那就是，你想帮助谁?”
“有哪些公共政策问题，你早上起来会思考如何解决?...Buttigieg说:“我只是不明白有些人的心态，他们在早上起床时认为，他将通过比赛来证明自己的价值，比赛的目的是为了让美国已经非常脆弱的遭受重创的社区的生活变得最艰难。”
这篇引人注目的帖子强调了德桑蒂斯在共和党初选选民中可能易受攻击的领域挑战特朗普的努力。早期民意调查继续向特朗普示好在共和党中遥遥领先于德桑蒂斯。
其他人则为对特朗普的攻击进行了辩护，保守派智库美国原则项目(American Principles Project)的乔恩·施韦普(Jon Schweppe)称这种攻击“客观上很有趣”一条推特:“这是一场运动，人们。男人一点。”
德桑蒂斯竞选团队的发言人克里斯蒂娜·普肖(Christina Pushaw)在推特上回应了格伦内尔的批评，写作周五:“反对联邦政府承认‘骄傲月’不是‘恐同’。”我们也不会支持一个月来庆祝异性恋者的性取向...这是不必要的，分裂，迎合。在美国这样一个幅员辽阔、多元化的国家，身份政治是毒药。"
DeSantis campaign touts his 'draconian' LGBTQ record vs. Trump; gay conservatives denounce him
Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign last week went afterRepublican rival Donald Trumpfor the former president's past support of the LGBTQ community -- though the viral video drew viral backlash as well.
The DeSantis campaign on Fridayshared a video, now seen more than 18 million times, that labels Trump as "the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate" Pride month and criticizes him for saying at the 2016 Republican National Convention that he would do everything he could "to protect our LGBTQ citizens." (Those remarks were made soon after the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Florida, where 49 people were killed by a gunman.)
The campaign video was originally created by another account and has a sarcastic and dramatic tone, mixing news footage, headlines and clips from pop culture. It cuts together other Trump statements, such as him once saying he was fine with Caitlyn Jenner using any bathroom she chose and him saying transgender women could compete in his beauty pageant, along with a photo of him holding the rainbow LGBTQ flag and a past tweet celebrating Pride.
DeSantis' campaign contrasts Trump's record with his own. The video they shared touts the governor's support forcontroversial restrictions on LGBTQ people, particularly those who are transgender, including banning gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.
As president, Trump supported major trans restrictions as well, such as forbidding openly trans people from enlisting in the military.
The DeSantis video approvingly quotes his record being described as "draconian" and "threaten[ing] trans existence."
While the laws have been cheered by conservatives in Florida, they have also been heavily criticized.
Amid outcry from advocates, the governor has often argued such moves are a response to what he calls inappropriate LGBTQ issues becoming increasingly mainstream. "As the world goes mad, Florida represents a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy," he said earlier this year.
The new DeSantis video quickly drew bipartisan criticism from the LGBTQ community.
Former Trump adviser and ambassador Richard Grenell, who is gay, wrote onTwitterthat the video was "undeniably homophobic."
Log Cabin Republicans, a group for LGBTQ conservatives,called the video"divisive" and "desperate."
"Conservatives understand that we need to protect our kids, preserve women's sports, safeguard women's spaces and strengthen parental rights, but Ron DeSantis' extreme rhetoric goes has just ventured into homophobic territory," the group wrote on Twitter. "DeSantis' rhetoric will lose hard-fought gains in critical races across the nation. This old playbook has been tried in the past and has failed - repeatedly."
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who is also gay,was asked on CNNto respond to the video.
"I'm going to choose my words carefully, partly because I'm appearing as secretary, so I can't talk about campaigns," Buttigieg said. "And I'm going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up shirtless bodybuilders and just get to a bigger issue that is on my mind whenever I see this stuff in the policy space, which is, again, who are you trying to help?"
"What public policy problems do you get up in the morning thinking about how to solve? ... I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he's going to prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America," Buttigieg said.
The headline-grabbing post underscores DeSantis' push to challenge Trump on areas where he may be vulnerable with GOP primary voters. Early pollscontinue to show Trumpwith a major lead over DeSantis among Republicans.
Others defended the attack on Trump, with Jon Schweppe, who works with the conservative think tank American Principles Project, calling it "objectively funny" ina tweet: "It's a campaign, people. Man up."
A spokesperson for DeSantis' campaign, Christina Pushaw, responded to Grennell's criticism on Twitter,writingon Friday: "Opposing the federal recognition of 'Pride Month' isn't 'homophobic.' We wouldn't support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either... It's unnecessary, divisive, pandering. In a country as vast and diverse as the USA, identity politics is poison."
