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And while it's good that you finally see this, @maggieNYT, people were trying to tell you this in 2016 when you wrote your piece about how Trump was pro-LGBTQ or whatever, even though at the time he'd *already* come out in favor of the so-called First Amendment Defense Act https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1299110013965938689
There was no mention of his support for that piece of legislation in your April 2016 piece, @maggieNYT. You devoted more space to an anecdote about how he sent Elton John a nice letter once than you did to his actual policy views, which he'd made public by then.
Lots of people did this whole, "Wellllllll.... we didn't know what to expect from Trump on LGBTQ issues!" thing in 2016, but that's just. not. true.
This was from December 2015. "If Congress makes the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signature and enactment."
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/12/23/trump-gives-conditional-support-for-religious-freedom-bill/
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/12/23/trump-gives-conditional-support-for-religious-freedom-bill/
The misleadingly named bill was essentially an end-run around SCOTUS' marriage equality ruling, restricting the government's ability to enforce nondiscrimination laws. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/07/17/how-conservatives-are-keeping-the-gay-marriage-issue-alive-on-capitol-hill/
Here he was on January 31, 2016 saying that he would "strongly consider" appointing judges he believed would overturn the SCOTUS ruling.
A couple weeks later he went further, saying "I think [evangelicals] can trust me. They can trust me on traditional marriage"
He wasn't just *personally* opposed to marriage equality; he was on record multiple times saying he'd try to make that policy. https://www1.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2016/02/18/brody-file-exclusive-donald-trump-tells-evangelicals-they-can-trust
He wasn't just *personally* opposed to marriage equality; he was on record multiple times saying he'd try to make that policy. https://www1.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2016/02/18/brody-file-exclusive-donald-trump-tells-evangelicals-they-can-trust
In February 2016, Ted Cruz accused Trump of being "with Obama" on marriage equality, as they hadn't taken as extreme a view on it as he had. How did Trump react? Well... https://www.politico.com/blogs/south-carolina-primary-2016-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/cruz-trump-and-rubio-are-with-obama-on-gay-marriage-219160
Trump called Cruz a liar for suggesting that he was fine with the marriage equality ruling and wouldn't try to overturn it. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/697998702477242369
One of the biggest sources of misinformation came out of an appearance on NBC's Today Show https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/25/ted-cruz/cruz-attack-ad-trump-distorts-transgender-bathroom/
Essentially, what happened there was Trump was asked a question he wasn't extremely prepared for, said that he opposed a North Carolina law *because of the economic damage brought on by boycotts of the state, not because of an actual opposition to policy*, and then...
But immediately after that, Trump appeared on Hannity's show and took the exact OPPOSITE position. Complete flip-flop in less than a day. https://web.archive.org/web/20170211204501/http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/04/21/donald-trump-accuses-his-rivals-buying-delegates/
All of this information was public *before* @maggieNYT wrote her piece about how accepting Trump supposedly was. But she didn't include any of it. In fact, her piece included MISINFORMATION, as there was no mention of Trump's reversal, just the Today show comments.
By the time this piece by @maggieNYT was published, Trump had reversed his position on this. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/us/politics/donald-trump-gay-rights.html
And at the time people tried to respond by saying, "This is not accurate! You have misinformation in there! Please update it!"
But @maggieNYT never did. She doesn't respond to criticism, even when it means leaving false and misleading information in her stories.
But @maggieNYT never did. She doesn't respond to criticism, even when it means leaving false and misleading information in her stories.
False and misleading information that gave people an absolutely backwards view of how Trump viewed LGBTQ rights from a policy standpoint.
She ignored that. She left it. She painted a wildly misleading picture, and we've all suffered for her actions.
She ignored that. She left it. She painted a wildly misleading picture, and we've all suffered for her actions.
And whenever someone tried to correct NYT misrepresentations of Trump's LGBTQ views, we were either ignored or we were condescended to. Example: https://twitter.com/alexburnsNYT/status/753664665566216197
And from the moment @maggieNYT's piece went up at NYT, @MSignorile was trying to correct factually inaccurate information. She either ignored him or she would condescend to him and act as though criticism of her was unfair.
And @maggieNYT would keep posting the link to the story and @MSignorile would continue to try to let her know that there were *factual errors* in her piece
So what happened next? Well, @MSignorile wrote a blog post about it, laying out the inaccuracies, distortions, etc. He had tried to quietly suggest corrections, but they were ignored. So he wrote a blog. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-new-york-times-bizarr_b_9827772?utm_hp_ref=michelangelo-signorile
How did @maggieNYT respond to @MSignorile?
"After a week of frantic tweeting to get me to respond, I salute you. I stand by the story."
He was just trying to get accurate information out there. He was waving red flags about the false impression that her story left.
"After a week of frantic tweeting to get me to respond, I salute you. I stand by the story."
He was just trying to get accurate information out there. He was waving red flags about the false impression that her story left.
And then she pretends that her piece was only about Trump's past and wasn't at all about current events. Even though she cited a Today show interview that happened days earlier in it.
So then @maggieNYT had the gall to say that it was @MSignorile who was the condescending one here. He had been trying to correct misinformation that could (and as it turns out, would) lead to actual harm of LGBTQ people.
So then in a different NYT article, by @jwpetersNYT, he contorts himself to make it sound like Trump wasn't on board with the GOP platform (the same one that's being used this year, btw) on marriage. But that was based on... nothing.
All that piece (again, this is from 2016) did, was rehash Haberman's points about how he's nice to Elton John and other meaningless stuff that had nothing to do with policy. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-party.html
And throughout the campaign @maggieNYT re-upped the piece about "Trump's history of tolerance w gay community" when the issue would come up, giving him cover
So, once again, I am glad that you *finally* acknowledge that Trump has been a one man wrecking ball on LGBTQ issues, but why couldn't you have corrected the misinformation in your story so early on, @maggieNYT?
Because here we are, three and a half years into a non-stop assault on the ability of people like me to just exist in the world, and there's still no acknowledgement of the damage done by pieces eager to paint him as something he wasn't.
I imagine this will result in either a.) no response, or b.) a response condescending to me, but I thought this was important, @maggieNYT. I hope that in the future, rather than rolling your eyes at criticism, you consider that it's coming from a genuine place.
Here's a thread I wrote the other day that lists *just a sampling* of the dozens and dozens of things he's done to attack LGBTQ rights since taking office. https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1298605229500440576
And here's a piece I wrote last year about how destructive the "Trump is pro-gay!" narrative in mainstream media was. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/its-time-reckoning-journalists-who-boosted-false-narratives-about-donald-trumps-lgbtq
