Fox “news”-side anchor Martha MacCallum flat-out lied about Trump’s horrible record on LGBTQ rights

MacCallum claimed that she has never “heard anything in President Trump's dialogue that says that he wants to turn the clock back to a time when Americans were prosecuted for being gay”

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Alex Paterson

Published


Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Martha MacCallum, a Fox News anchor and part of the network’s purported “news”-side team, misinformed viewers of President Donald Trump’s record of rolling back and outright attacking the rights of the LGBTQ community.

During the July 7 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, MacCallum reacted to U.S. women’s national soccer team co-captain Megan Rapinoe’s ongoing protest of the Trump-Pence administration, claiming, “I've never seen or read or heard anything in President Trump's dialogue that says that he wants to turn the clock back to a time when Americans were prosecuted for being gay.” While making these comments, MacCallum conveniently ignored the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on LGBTQ people.

Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ community began in the very first week of his presidency and continue today. He has aligned his administration with extreme anti-LGBTQ groups and, according to GLAAD, has launched over 100 attacks against LGBTQ people, including reversing numerous protections for the community. And just in May, media reported that the administration is considering three potential rules that would permit discrimination against LGBTQ people in housing, health care, adoption, and foster care.

Here are just some of the extreme anti-LGBTQ actions the Trump-Pence administration has taken since coming into power:

  • January 2017: The Trump administration removed LGBTQ-related content from numerous federal websites.
  • February 2017: The departments of Justice and Education rescinded Obama-era nondiscrimination protections for transgender students.
  • March 2017: The Department of Health and Human Services removed LGBTQ questions from an annual survey of elderly Americans.
  • July 2017: Trump announced on Twitter that the military would ban transgender service members.
  • September 2017: The Justice Department intervened in an anti-LGBTQ discrimination case by submitting a friend of the court brief in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, who refused services to a same-sex couple.
  • January 2018: The HHS Office of Civil Rights proposed a new rule that would allow health care workers to deny treatment to LGBTQ patients under the guise of “religous freedom.”
  • January 2019: The Trump administration granted South Carolina adoption agencies a waiver to discriminate against prospective LGBTQ parents.
  • May 2019: The Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a rule that would permit federally funded homeless shelters to deny services to transgender people.

MacCallum’s false portayal of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ record is right at home on Fox, where the so-called “straight news” anchors regularly denigrate, smear, and vilify LGBTQ people. From the July 10 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom:

MARTHA MACCALLUM: I think it’s sad this whole issue about the trip to the White House and how politicized this whole thing has become. I also think it’s unfortunate that it’s become about one player, about Megan Rapinoe. 

 

...

 

MACCALLUM: I don't know what she's actually talking about, really. You know, when you look at the movements in this country since the Stonewall uprising and you see you know the years of progress in terms of the way that -- that LBGT people are treated in this country, there has been a lot of advances. And I don't think that it’s -- I've never seen or read or heard anything in President Trump's dialogue that says that he wants to turn the clock back to a time when Americans were prosecuted for being gay. I mean, does she really believe that? I don't think that that’s the case. So I just am curious.